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The dying human-alien hybrid Eve gives birth to a baby girl.
Dr Abbot, a misguided university professor, kidnaps the child
from the military and hides her in his private laboratory.
He hopes to modify her alien DNA to engineer a creature less
dangerous to human beings, and recruits graduate student Dean
to assist him. But there are other hybrids out there...
The
thing that always bugged me about Species II was that
it completely failed to follow up on the "cliffhanger" ending
to the first movie, in which the survival of Sil's (Natasha
Henstridge) infant offspring suggested that the alien threat
was far from over. We never found out what happened to that
boy in the first sequel, but Species III suggests an
answer...
It
turns out that there are now numerous human-alien half-breeds
roaming the Earth. These are presumably the offspring of Sil's
own child, all of whom, of course, rapidly reach maturity.
However, they are all genetically flawed and, sooner or later,
are doomed to disintegrate. Cue lots of pus, blood, melting
skin and slimy tentacles - which is what we expect from the
Species franchise. The half-breeds need an infusion
of pure alien DNA, and they sense that they can obtain it
from Dr Abbot's researches.
Which
brings us to the other element that we have come to expect
from this franchise: naked female flesh! The baby that Dr
Abbot (Robert Knepper) rescues soon grows to adulthood and,
before we know it, Sara (Sunny Mabrey), as she chooses to
be known, is getting her kit off at every available opportunity.
She even disrobes so that Dean (Robin Dunne) can take a blood
sample from her arm, which seems to tad overenthusiastic.
Natasha Henstridge makes only a brief appearance at the beginning
of the movie, but the young Mabrey proves an adequate successor,
though her breasts do look somewhat artificial.
Ben
Ripley's script is populated by rather two-dimensional characters:
the unhinged scientist, the bad-tempered head of department
(Christopher Neame), the shady government agent (Michael Warren),
etc. He doesn't even bother to give Abbot's cat a name! Warren
gets a great line, though, as he discusses the fact that he
doesn't have the budget to provide manpower or weaponry of
the kind that were expended during the last two operations
- a sly reference to the fact that this straight-to-video
venture has only one-eighth of the budget of its cinematic
forbears.
In
fact, this production looks very slick indeed, thanks to hi-definition
video cameras. This and other backstage secrets are revealed
in half an hour's worth of featurettes. The DVD also includes
a trailer and an audio commentary featuring Ben Ripley, Robin
Dunne and director Brad Turner. The commentary isn't particularly
revelatory, mostly consisting of Ripley, Dunne and Turner
agreeing about how happy they are with the finished product.
Species
III is OK. Not fantastic, just OK. But what more do you
expect from this series?
Richard
McGinlay
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