Species 2 1999 Horror Movie Review

“They could f**k the human race out of existence!” warns Michael Madsen in this inevitable—and inevitably contrived—sequel to 1995’s surprise sci-fi hit. He’s referring to a celebrated astronaut (Justin Lazard) infected with alien DNA from his history-making Mars landing, and the half-alien Eve (Natasha Henstridge), who was created from alien-human embryo splicing by biochemist Dr. Laura Baker (Marg Helgenberger) in an effort to discover the alien species’s vulnerabilities on Earth. While the astronaut sows his gruesomely wild oats with doomed women (resulting in a bevy of creepy kids in alien cocoons), Eve goes into heat until she and the astronaut can consummate their procreative lust. Sex and death are served up like money-shots in a [**]o flick, with an emphasis on gory flesh-regeneration, explosive pregnancies, and slimy-tentacled intercourse. All of which makes this is the kind of derivative schlock that only a true fan could love, but it’s boosted to a tolerable level of entertainment by the returning cast (Madsen, Henstridge, and Helgenberger) from the previous film. —Jeff Shannon