Species II (1998)

Starring – Michael Madsen; Natasha Henstridge; Marg Helgenberger; Mykelti Williamson & George Dzundza

Director – Peter Medak

MPAA – Rated R for strong sexuality, sci-fi violence/gore and language.

I’m going to start right out by saying that Species II is not as good as the first movie. The story is good, the acting is good, and the special effects are better than the first Species, but Species II seems to lack something. Oh I know, it must be the fact that Natasha Henstridge isn’t naked in every second scene she is in. While that may seem like a really sexist comment, (which it probably is) nobody will deny that that little fact was part of the ingredients that made the first film so successful. So when the lovely Natasha declined to do as much nudity in the second movie as she did in the first, (don’t worry guys, she still takes her clothes off in one scene) the producers must have thought that the lack of skin would hurt the movie. So we now have no fewer than three additional women with nude scenes in Species II. Now don’t get me wrong boys and girls, I love to see beautiful naked women running around on the screen, but this was just too obvious. They might have well just put a disclaimer at the first of the film — Since Natasha only gets naked once, we have included a whole bunch of other naked women to make up for Natasha’s excessive clothing.

Species II has a simple enough premise. A manned mission to Mars comes into contact with some alien DNA that decides to hitch a ride with the astronauts back to Earth. It infects the mission commander, Patrick Ross, (Justin Lazard) who, much like the alien Sil from Species, finds himself compelled to mate with as many women as he can to start a race of aliens. When dead bodies start turning up, the army goes to Press Lenox, (Michael Madsen) one of the only surviving members of the team that destroyed the alien in the first Species.

Meanwhile, back at a government lab, Dr. Laura Baker, (Marg Helgenberger) the other survivor of Species, has gone to work for the government and cloned a copy of Sil, the alien from the first movie. This new clone is named Eve and is again played by Natasha Henstridge. Eve has been raised a little differently from Sil. Having learned from past mistakes, the scientists have made some genetic changes which make Eve more docile than her predecessor and try to restrain her naturally overactive libido

Anyway, in the hunt for this new alien, Eve is asked to help. It doesn’t take a real stretch to figure out that an over sexed female alien and an over sexed male alien have only one thing on their minds. So when the two finally get together, watch out. Seem like a simple plot line? Well kids, it is. The producers of Species II didn’t put a whole heck of a lot of thought into this one. Hey it’s a nice touch that Natasha Henstridge gets to play a good alien in this film, just the opposite of her character in the first film. It’s just too bad that little plot device was already used in Terminator 2, and with much better results. My guess is that when this film was being written, the writers thought that Natasha Henstridge would again be topless for most of the movie, and no one would care about little technicalities like a plot since they would be to busy drooling over her chest.

Considering the writing, Species II isn’t all bad. The acting is pretty good. I mean we aren’t talking Oscar nominations here, but its average for a sci-fi action thriller. Natasha Henstridge continues to improve with each movie that she is in. Michael Madsen and Marg Helgenberger do their normally good jobs. Nice additions to the cast include Mykelti Williamson as one of the astronauts from the infected Mars mission, as an added bit of comic relief. James Cromwell as a senator and father of the infected astronaut, and George Dzundza (whom some may recognize best from his work on the first season of Law & Order) as the army colonel in charge of cleaning up this latest batch of aliens.

Not a bad film, just not nearly as good as it could have been. Definitely not for the squeamish, or those who don’t approve of nude scenes thrown in for any reason other than that the producers like looking at naked women. Hey, it’s a fun movie as long as you don’t go expecting too much.

6/10 – Not bad, but not great.

Fair Game (1995)

Starring – William Baldwin; Cindy Crawford; Steven Berkoff; Christopher McDonald & Miguel Sandoval

Director – Andrew Sipes

MPAA – Rated R for intermittent strong violence, language and a scene of sexuality.

All right, the first problem that Fair Game has is the casting of supermodel Cindy Crawford in the lead role. Not that Cindy does that bad, it’s just that anyone who watches this film knows from moment one that that little bit of casting was not done because of Cindy’s extraordinary acting skills, but for her extraordinary ability to look drop dead gorgeous in any situation. And in Fair Game most situations tend to find Cindy either soaking wet or very hot and sweaty, but I’m sure that that is just a coincidence, no doubt that these situations were essential to the plot and the fact that Cindy looks great wet, well, that’s just a happy coincidence. Sure. William Baldwin isn’t a bad actor. Unfortunately, he just doesn’t demonstrate it at all in this movie. I’m not sure if that’s because most of his lines were just so hokey, or if he was trying to make Cindy’s acting look good. If it was the latter, it worked. Cindy does a surprisingly good job here in her first movie; which is not to say that she doesn’t have room for improvement. Although to be fair to Cindy, her lines were kinda cheesy in places.

So right about now you are no doubt asking yourself what sort of movie does Cindy Crawford, arguably the most beautiful woman on the planet, chose for her foray into the world of cinema. Well, I’m glad you asked that question. Cindy plays a lawyer who by some convoluted plot twists becomes a target for former elite KGB agents. Why would they target someone as likable as Cindy, you ask? By the end of the movie you won’t care. The story is so contrived it isn’t funny. Anyway after Cindy gets blown out of the window of her house, without getting so much as a scratch I might add, she is placed into protective police custody under the watchful eve of William Baldwin. Baldwin’s character, Max Kirkpatrick, is a police detective who seems to possess the skills of some sort of fighting machine. My guess is that the writers have seen way too many of Steven Seagal’s early films. The idea of the Crawford and Baldwin’s characters of the run from these killer Russians isn’t all that bad of an idea, it’s just everything around that basic idea which kinda stinks out loud.

The supporting cast members are nothing more that over acted stereotypes. If I was Baldwin, I’d hope this film disappears. As for Crawford, she may indeed have some acting ability. Unfortunately, any she does have is obscured by writing that goes beyond bad.

This movie was obviously written with Cindy in mind, since the writers spend most of their time finding ways to capitalize off of her looks. It’s too bad they hadn’t spent more time on a half decent plot, since Ms. Crawford is more than capable of looking just fine all by herself; thank you very much. Unless you are a huge fan of either Baldwin or Crawford this is a movie that will only disappoint you.

4/10