Does this movie have anything unique about it? Let's see how similar it is to The Thing:1. Alien a pure mixture of Xenomorph(looks like Giger isn't that inventive after all) and tentacles from The Thing.2. Alien disguises as a human.3. The trick is in the DNA.4. You get a doofus team of "experts"5. Alien's goal is to reproduceHowever, if Alien(the movie) was original, dreadful and with a lot of acting, Species is a, quoting the movie, "wild (monster) goose chase". And, unlike the real horror of the Thing, with endless thrill and plot twists, this movie doesn't even try to be predictable.The whole movie revolves around just look at... nothing really. With a few cheap jumpscares. And a finale that... well, really, fits more for a 2010+ Sci-Fi movie than for a pre-2000. Really, the stupidity is palpable, it's in the air, in every shot. Practically every action is entirely nonsense. Let's put that into the perspective: the person, who has been tracking the alien - suddenly gets left behind, while the "big guy" goes in. Surprise, the next minute the tracker finds the alien. Of course, he doesn't shoot, why would he? This causes the third person to slip and fall, and spend the next few minutes crying to help, saying she's stuck. After that - she will get out by herself and... well, not contribute to the final scene NOT EVEN ONE BIT!Michael Madson playing himself mostly, Ben Kingsley... well, really, I couldn't imagine a terrible performance from Ben, but he doesn't deserve a point here. He was totally wasted, his whole point was - to NOT CHANGE A FACE, not even once, in the entire movie. That was literally everything he did, besides embarrassing himself in the plot for... no real reason.But, there is something in this movie that deserves 3/10. The proof that this a pre-2000 Sci-Fi movie. It has ti.... Nudity. Plenty of it. Now where was that in Ghost in the Shell...

Pretty much B-movie territory... but like I said it has its moments of real class.As the adult S1L works out her destiny, there are times you feel like you're seeing the kinds of primitive psychological insights into an idealized character, such as you'd get from Philip K. Dick or Jerome Bixby. I found those flashes refreshing and exciting. I also sometimes found myself gripped by the central existential issue: That the fate of the human race rests on the outcome, no less than in the original "Alien".But, yes, these rather pristine story elements wind up a bit inundated by the succession of de rigeur horror flick alien/human encounters.And there is the fact that one of the most interesting plot points is a tech hubris of ginormous proportions (NO SPOILER: It's revealed in the first 10 minutes): WHO the HECK's Bright Idea was it to shotgun a DNA sequence radioed from outer space into a human egg?!?!?! Sheesh!!!So, with the proviso that it's pretty much a horror movie snack, it's worth watching for the aforementioned sterling conceptual stings, the general decent production values, the nicely turned dramatic tension over the outcome, and almost all of the acting. There are some letdowns, but I still consider this a not-half-bad "period" classic of the genre.

In 1993, SETI program receives a transmission documenting how to splice alien DNA with human DNA. Xavier Fitch (Ben Kingsley) leads a secret government project to do just that. They created Sil (Michelle Williams). Her growth is extremely rapid. When Fitch tries to destroy her, she escapes. She metamorphoses into a grow woman (Natasha Henstridge). She learns quickly in a world she doesn't know. Fitch gathers a diverse team to find and kill the potentially dangerous creature. Dr. Stephen Arden (Alfred Molina) is an anthropologist. Dr. Laura Baker (Marg Helgenberger) is a molecular biologist. Dan Smithson (Forest Whitaker) is an empath and Preston Lennox (Michael Madsen) is the mercenary.There is enough backstory to justify it. I really like the idea that she's interstellar weed to kill off humanity. It's Alien in a pretty package. Alien is one of my favorite movie and I certainly don't mind the pretty package. Natasha Henstridge is a little more than simply pretty. She shows both wide-eyed innocence and a bit of murderous spark. The empath is ridiculous but I still like the hunt and the thrills.

A surprisingly strong cast of solid actors(past & future Academy Award winners Ben Kingsly & Forest Whitaker among them!), and a good director(Roger Donaldson) all involved in a trashy Sci-Fi story about an alien replicated from captured DNA in a secret government experiment, being pursued by a crack team of scientists and soldiers after she escapes, and wrecks havoc across the city as it becomes determined to reproduce its species on Earth, or die trying...Nothing new or original in this story at all, certainly not thought-provoking Science Fiction, but is slickly put together, though why such fuss was made about such low-rent material is unknown...