Got bored and watched Species II...

So I was bored the other night and was flipping through the cable guide when I noticed that Species was on the new Epix channel we have.

I first saw Species in the theater. I was working at Pizza Hut at the time and I kind of oversold certain aspects of the movie. I was amused at the amount of nudity in the film by star Nastasha Henstridge. She spends an good amount of time in the film in a bra or topless.

I noticed that after Species was its sequel, Species II. Both films star Marg Helgenberger of CSI fame and Michael Madsen of a lot of violent movies fame. Nastasha Henstridge also stars as Eve, a clone of the original Sil.

The movie was released in theaters, but has the look and feel of a direct-to-video movie. Helgenberger is fairly solid as Dr. Laura Baker, but Madsen, whom I read thinks the movie stinks, looks like he's in pain most of the time as Press Lennox. I don't blame him.

Species II has a lot of nudity, too, but it didn't help the box office. The movie bombed when it was released, yet has spawned two more Direct to DVD sequels.

The movie starts with a mission to Mars. One astronaut goes to the surface to collect soil samples and apparently that's all, because after traveling months to get to Mars, all NASA is interested in is a 2-hour Mars walk to get 3 tubes of soil samples. Why spend more time there studying the planet? Time is money people!

So they are ready to leave after storing the soil samples. One tube warms up and a gray ooze falls out to the ground, which appears to infect the crew. No communication is available for 7 minutes, but then everything appears fine. So the crew makes it back to Earth, given a quick check over and sent on their merry way while being reminded that they are "quarantined" and NOT to engage in sexual activity for a few more days.

I have a question here... Wouldn't you keep the astronauts there for a few days while evaluating them? They just spent almost a year in space, which can affect your bone density for one thing. Wouldn't you run through a lot of tests?

So one of the astronauts, Patrick, the one who walked on the surface, starts to have all sorts of unprotected sex. In one scene, he sleeps with two women in a hotel room one after the other, which apparently was in those new sound proof hotels that can muffle the sound of two women screaming at the same time because after Patrick has sex, the women he impregnates each immediately give birth in a rather grisly fashion to a kid the size of a four-year-old.

Soon Patrick is amassing a large brood of alien creepy kid offspring in his father's shed at an old summer home as he has continued to sleep with women of all sorts. Dr. Baker explains that soon, the offspring will go into cocoons and transform into adult aliens so time is running short to find them.

Meanwhile, Eve offers to help find Patrick. She's given radiation to awaken her alien mind (of course) to link to Patrick. While linked to Patrick, Press Lennox and the other uninfected astronaut, Dennis, race to stop Patrick from impregnating another woman that he's kidnapped in the grocery store they've just entered.

I say "race" loosely here because it's more like a casual stroll. They hear a scream and are told which way Patrick has dragged a woman and stroll that direction as if they are checking out an art museum walking tour. He's gaining ground while they casually stroll into the back of the store, glide down some stairs, meander through the basement and lope up the shipping driveway to the parking lot where Patrick has forced the woman into a van and is attempting to procreate. Meanwhile Press and Patrick walk even slower past the van to a van that's already rocking, which turns out to be some teens. They tell them to buzz off and then still show no signs of haste to find the alien, which we've established has just kidnapped a woman and is in the process of trying to make another creepy alien!

Patrick gives himself up when he senses Eve's existence. He's taken to the same lab where Eve is. They make hot glass faces at each other. He escapes again while they try to keep him away from Eve. Eve then breaks out to go and have some sex with Patrick.

The movie is filled with a lot of stiff and eye rolling dialogue. A good example of this is when Eve escapes, she steals an Army hummer and drives away with it.

Someone asks, "I thought she didn't know how to drive."

Dr. Baker says, "Her favorite show is the Dukes of Hazard!"

I watched that a ton when I was a kid, but I didn't really have a sense on how to drive. Besides, she didn't jump across the hood and slide into the door through the window. She also didn't jump a gorge, but I'm sure if it was there, she might have attempted it.

They follow Eve to the location of Patrick's brood of kids. While she runs off to have weird alien sex upstairs, they spray the cocoons with a mixture of Dennis's blood, which they figure out will kill the alien because Dennis has the sickle cell gene and the aliens won't mate unless the host is disease free.

In the end, the aliens are killed, even the brood of creepy kids. The ending predictably sets up a sequel, but good luck getting me to watch it.

It was an okay movie though. I'll probably never watch it again, unless the Riff Trax guys make a commentary track for it.