‘We decided to make it female so it would be more docile and controllable...’
Not to go all bad observational comedian on you, but the youth of today will never get to experience the thrill of taping a film off the telly onto a blank VHS cassette (inevitably received as a gift at Christmas time). The random nature of the TV schedule ensured that while there were some films that everyone had, others appeared in homes across the nation with no rhyme or reason. And so it is that alongside such universal classics as Pulp Fiction, Gremlins and Jurassic Park, I also have fond memories of taping Universal Soldier, Time Bandits and Species. The great thing about being a kid is that you go into everything without any preconceived notions of what is ‘good’ and ‘bad’. And so, I loved Species as much as I loved Forrest Gump. For me, they were both classics…
A group of scientists led by Xavier Fitch (Ben Kingsley) create an alien life form in a laboratory and name it Sil (as portrayed by Michelle Williams as a child and Natasha Henstridge all grown up). When this invariably goes disastrously wrong, Fitch calls in a ragtag group of oddballs in order to clean up the mess. People were always calling in a ragtag group of oddballs in the 90s. It was a bad time for experts. This results in the unlikely combination of an anthropologist (Alfred Molina), a molecular biologist (Marg Helgenberger), a hitman (Michael Madsen) and an ’empath’ (Forest Whitaker) who can essentially read minds. So far, so crazy.
In the years since its release in the summer of 1995, Species has been dismissed as a trashy B-movie. Which is fair. But the quality of that cast simply can’t be denied. Neither can the fact that sci-fi genius H.R. Giger designed the aliens (although much of his work was tragically cut short due to budgeting restraints and a cowardly studio). Director Roger Donaldson was also an experienced hand at the time having had success with Cocktail and No Way Out. The result is a film that is confused but never confusing, a mishmash of sci-fi, horror, romance and eroticism that would never be made today – certainly not with this cast and this budget anyway.
The first half of Species is actually very good. Dennis Feldman’s script is a little cheesy in places, but that is par for the course for the era, and the cast elevates the worst moments anyway. Sadly, the middle section of the film sags a little becoming repetitive before the third act claws back a little respectability. It doesn’t help that all the characters bar Helgenberger’s biologist are pretty unlikeable although Madsen and Molina are at least funny.
Species is about as good as I remember it. Nobody could really claim this is an objectively great movie, but it is a fun time with some entertaining moments. A nostalgia-tinged exercise, for sure, but one that was worth revisiting.