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To me, this movie is perfection.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

This is a bad movie. Like all of the sequels to the first movie. The effects were all computer generated except for the species suit that I have got bored of. They dragged out all of the scenes far more than they ever should have. I have nothing to write. There was no imagination in the film and so I have no imagination to write a review. Another painfully bad entry into the Species series that offers nothing new or good. My favourite bit was the flying nun.

I really don't like giving moves such low ratings. It makes me feel...dirty, after all, I am a scriptwriter and hope to get one of my movies made into a film someday. Still, the reason I gave Species IV at least a 4 was for the cinematography and makeup. Ben Cross was okay, as usual, just out of his element in this film. Otherwise, the movie was nothing more than H.R. Giger Meets Hugh Hefner at the Playboy Mansion. The flick started off well, too, before it turned into Caligula. Then, it was cliché after cliché, unnecessary nude scene after nude scene. I get it. Fanboys enjoy naked chicks in oil, but it does not for a good story make. Anyway, it is what it is. The Species franchise ended on a low point. That's okay, though. With the continued proliferation of recycling old horror films these days, a reboot can be foreseen.

One day, college professor(yeah, right... she's about as convincing as a dummy) Miranda falls ill. She is then told by her "uncle"(who now admits that he is not related to her) that she was a science experiment of his, of combining alien and human DNA. Yes, like in the original. Only no cocooning, seemingly no sped-up growth, and she had no idea until she suddenly transformed... apparently because she was dying. Which makes it kinda strange that she's still powerful. This takes several good ideas, including that of someone's memories being a lie repeated until they accepted it and themes straight out of the story of Dr. Frankenstein and utterly *wastes* all this potential. The acting and production values are the level of a soap opera, as another reviewer notes. Locations are dull, lighting is poor, and the camera is constantly trying to fake tension(of which there is none to be found in the entirety of this) by shaking/excessively moving and using close-ups(something that only renders these horrendous performances even less tolerable). The dialog is just plain bad, and flat like the great plains. We get additional instances of "learning without opening the book", something that was idiotic when it was introduced in the third(that this does not, by the way, follow up on the sequel-baiting ending of). There are countless questions raised by the cheese(Swiss, by the way) that is the plot, and none of them are attempted answered. As if all of that wasn't enough, the creatures in this pose. They attack with no reason, and usually with their tongue(what a lack of creativity). One of them initially appears dressed as a nun. I'll let that sink in. We see them too much, for long periods of time, and the guy who's making them in this isn't worried about them in the least(so why should we be?). Oh, and he earns a living cloning dead pets(and apparently people, as well? And combining them with the extra-terrestrial genetic material, in spite of the fact that that's probably tougher to do than simply making a direct copy), so surely no one will be suspicious of him when bodies are found murdered under strange circumstances(and this seems to be a common occurrence, based on what takes place during the events of this). The characters are bland, stereotypical, and/or completely uninteresting. I couldn't care about anyone in this, at all. Hollander is inconsistently written. FX are cheap. There is slow-motion during a fight sequence. In a monster flick! There's hardly any nudity(granted, the chicks are hot... still, when they strip, it tends to be covered or they shoot around it), sex, bloody, gory violence or strong language. This is the stupidest and worst of the Species series, and it is also the only that doesn't lend itself easily to being followed by another entry, so perhaps it can end here. Let's be honest, only the '95 one was worth the time. I recommend this solely to those who won't heed the warning. 2/10

The scientist Hollander has got a beautiful niece, a very intelligent girl named Miranda (Helena Mattson) who starts teaching at university while she still is rather young. But when she becomes ill, Hollander reveals he's not her uncle and takes her to a lab in Mexico because that's where she was created - from alien DNA. The revelation of her origin is shocking, and Miranda starts to ask questions about ethics which are difficult to answer. Helena Mattson clearly is the most talented actress among the female aliens of the series (Henstridge may have more charisma, but not as much versatility), because in these scenes Mattson is very believably moving from shock to guilt - and onwards to the inhuman superiority of a higher developed species.If this had been shot in the 1950s, it probably would have been entitled "I Walked With A Teenage Alien". I had low expectations, since the same franchise was being exploited for the 4th time, but the movie manages to be creative enough to put its own stamp on the saga. In the second half of the movie, the makers give in to the expectations of the audience with more fights (including a spectacular alien vs alien death-match), but until then, it was really clever, playing more than its predecessors with the idea of "shall we do that just because it can be done?". Somehow the religious symbolism didn't fit in - the Mexican alien is disguised as a nun and hit by a huge cross once - because aliens obviously have no connexion to earthly traditions like that. That's more for "The Omen", "The Exorcist" and such like. I voted 8/5/6/7 for the 4 parts of the series, which means: if you know only the original, but none of the sequels, I recommend you try at least this one.