SPECIES III - DVD review

First there was "Species" (1995), a mediocre space-alien monster movie saved by the presence of its comely star, Natasha Henstridge, padding around half the time in the buff. Then, like all good breeds trying to sustain their kind, the movie spawned a sequel titled, not surprisingly, "Species II" (1998). Knowing they couldn't just repeat the same formula and expect a profit, the filmmakers added a second creature to the mix. Now we come to the third movie in the series, "Species III" (2004). Knowing they couldn't just keep adding creatures and expect audiences to bust down theater doors, the filmmakers tried video.

"Species III" premiered on the Sci-Fi Channel and then went straight to DVD. Was the studio, MGM, correct in second-guessing that it might not make a lucrative theater offering? You bet. If the first movie was ordinary at best and the second movie was inferior to that, they must have seen what I saw, that the third entry was by far the worst of the lot. There is one ray of hope, though: This should mark the end of the road for "Species" movies. (Fingers crossed, holding breath, counting to ten.)

To begin, let me recap the first two movies if I may. In "Species" S.E.T.I. (the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) received a signal from outer space telling them how to combine space-alien DNA with human DNA to produce a new class of beings. Government scientists couldn't resist the temptation to conduct an experiment and produced a female that developed at enormous speed, escaped her captivity when they tried to terminate her, and ran amuck through the populace of Los Angeles. The creature, whom they named Sil (Henstridge), wanted urgently to mate and reproduce, thus ensuring the propagation of its race. Sil was uncommonly gorgeous most of the time but turned into an unsightly, homicidal monster when she felt threatened.

In "Species II" the filmmakers tried to top the first story by creating not one but two such creatures. The first was yet another woman developed in the lab (Natasha Henstridge again), equally pretty as but less dangerous than the first mutant female; and the second was a man (Justin Lazard) just returned from Mars, where he had picked up a virus that caused him to want to copulate frequently, sprout tentacles, and kill his mates. Apparently, this new alter ego wanted to propagate its kind by producing instant offspring, and it didn't much care that its partners would die in the process. Things turned even more troublesome when the two creatures found out about each other and wanted desperately to get together.

"Species III" begins where things in the second movie left off. The female creature (Natasha Henstridge yet again) is supposedly dead and being returned to an army base for an autopsy and analysis. Ah, but a scientist, Dr. Abbott (Robert Knepper), thinks he can do something more with the creature's DNA, so as the movie opens he has somehow disguised himself as a solder, and he's driving the truck transporting the body of the creature back to wherever. Naturally, he stops the truck, kills the soldier who's with him, and attempts to abscond with the creature's body. But, wait....! The creature isn't dead! What's more, it's about to give birth! Help me, I'm running out of exclamation marks!

In one of the film's many scenes of grossness, we witness the creature giving birth, and then a little boy sticking his tongue out at the creature and strangling her to death with it. Where'd the little boy come from? Well, he was apparently hiding in the back of the truck all along. Why'd he kill her if he and she appear to be of a kind? It's never made entirely clear. And what does the boy do when Prof. Abbott carries off the newborn child? Nothing, apparently. Why not? Dunno.

The professor cares for the child tenderly, nurturing it in a cage in his basement, and waits for it to grow up. Which takes all of about two minutes, screen time, or maybe that's just wishful thinking. Anyway, same routine. The new creature is a girl, she morphs into a beautiful young woman (Sunny Mabrey), and she parades around naked as often as screenwriter Ben Ripley can figure it into the story line. Or not figure it in. Sometimes, she just parades around for the heck of it.

From this point on, things get even sillier, so I'll spare you the details. Robin Dunne plays Dean, a graduate student who comes to assist the professor in attempting to use the creature's genes to produce a super race of disease-resistant humans. J.P. Pitoc plays Hastings, Dean's lamebrained roommate. Christopher Neame plays Dr. Turner, the creepy head of Dean's department at school. And Amelia Cooke plays one of the movie's several "half-breeds," mutant creatures that resulted from the various copulations of previous "Species" space aliens. Like Ms. Mabrey, Ms. Cooke is young and attractive so, of course, she is also required to run around for a time in the nude. Two pretty girls for the price of one; what more could any self-respecting sci-fi fan want? Sorry I asked.

Oh, and there's a lovely, black Ferrari F355 that deserves to be in a better picture.

Lots of stuff happens in "Species III" that makes no sense, and then it all ends. (I hope.) Expect the following things: a fusion generator to play a part in the plot line; the shell of a little blond girl to hang upside down from the ceiling for the better part of the story; oozy, gory disintegrations; full frontal autopsies; several scenes meant to remind us of better films (a train crossing from "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," a swamp from "Psycho"); much grossness and violence; and an ending that leaves things open for yet another sequel.

Heaven help us.

Video:
In one of the accompanying featurettes, the filmmakers go on about how much better it was to shoot "Species III" in high-definition video, where they could see the results immediately and make their edits more conveniently. What they don't say is that even high-definition video is generally inferior to conventional print film. Whereas high-def video can reproduce between one and two thousand horizontal scan lines, typical film stock can reproduce between three and four thousand lines. The results show up on screen.

This looks like a common TV broadcast, with definition ranging from very good to downright awful. Colors are fine in bright daylight shots, but most of the time the picture looks soft and blurred, with darker areas of the screen appearing murky. The screen size measures approximately 1.74:1 across my standard-definition HD television, but with an ordinary bit rate the quality of the transfer suffers further. Some few moiré effects, a good deal of light but visible grain, and a general dullness to the picture are not at all distracting but speak of a workaday product.

Audio:
The sound, Dolby Digital 5.1, fares a little better than the video, but it isn't given a lot to do. Despite the action in the movie, there aren't too many special aural effects; thus, the sound is mainly confined to the front speakers. Here, the audio works well, conveying a good stereo spread and clear dialogue. Frequency response is moderate, but bass comes through on occasion with authority, and dynamics are about on a par with most modern film soundtracks. The surrounds are left to create a sense of musical ambiance and provide a few rear-channels thrills. But only a few.

Extras:
Accompanying the film are as many extras as come with any big-time Hollywood blockbuster. My guess is that MGM spent as much on the DVD's bonus materials as they did on the film itself. OK, exaggeration, but you get the idea. First, there's an audio commentary with director Brad Turner, writer Ben Ripley, and actor Robin Dunne. Next, there are four featurettes that range from five to thirteen minutes each. Why they couldn't have been combined into one thirty-five minute documentary, I don't know. Maybe for marketing reasons, the four separate featurettes make it look like there's more material on the disc than there really is. Anyway, they're called "Alien Odyssey: Evolution," "Alien Odyssey: Species DNA," "Alien Odyssey: Alien Technology," and "Alien Odyssey: Intelligent Lifeform." After that is a behind-the-scenes photo gallery and thirty-two scene selections. English is the only spoken language offered, but there are subtitles in English, French, and Spanish.

The movie is unrated, having never been submitted to the Motion Picture Association of America's Ratings Board. My guess is that if it had been submitted, it would have received an R rating for graphic violence and nudity.

Parting Shots:
Clearly, "Species III" is for die-hard fans of the series only. And I'm sure they, too, will be sorely disappointed. Nothing new, nothing original, nothing innovative has been added to the recipe. None of the acting stands out, none of the script, none of the direction, none of the music, none of the special effects. There actually isn't much here except the expected beautiful girl(s) in the nude. It's hardly enough to sell a sci-fi monster movie these days.