Metro-Goldwyn-MayerFast and not without entertainment value, wrote one critic of this outrageous alien romp, but dont look at yourself too closely in the mirror if you end up defending it. Species is the kind of movie that Hollywood excels at a tacky, straight-to-video movie writ large (see also: Resident Evil). Armed with a studio budget, director Roger Donaldson (Dantes Peak) ropes in Oscar winners Ben Kingsley and Forest Whitaker and has them chase an alien packaged as a blond centrefold through Los Angeles, but this is a superior film to the similar Lifeforce (1985). For one thing, the alien is played by Natasha Henstridge (in her film debut), so viewer interest is maintained despite the numerous howlers in Dennis Feldmans script. The funniest of these comes when Whitaker whose character is supposed to be an empathist capable of sensing what happened in various places wanders onto a gore-soaked crime scene and announces that something bad happened here, to which a colleague responds, no sh*t! Its fair to assume that the exchange wasnt supposed to be funny, either Feldman also wrote The Golden Child (1986), so he clearly knows nothing about comedy.
Ian Watson is the author of 'Midnight Movie Madness', a 600+ page guide to "bad" movies from 'Reefer Madness' to 'Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead.'