Review by Kelly Parks

SPECIES IV: THE AWAKENING (2007) MGM Rating: USA: R There was lots of news leading up to the release of this movie. Check out the SPECIES: QUATTRO news page.

How the hell does a movie that sucked as bad as SPECIES generate three sequels?

Okay, sorry, that's the wrong attitude. I need to judge this story on its own and to keep in mind that I actually kind of liked SPECIES II. I am Zen. I am calm. Somebody hit "play", please. Thanks.

SPECIES IV: THE AWAKENING was written by Ben Ripley (SPECIES III) and directed by Nick Lyon (GRENDEL [TV]). The story begins with beautiful college professor Miranda Hollander (Helena Mattson) teaching a course in Greek mythology, much to the enjoyment of the male students.

Miranda meets up with her Uncle, Tom Hollander (Ben Cross: TALES FROM THE CRYPT [TV], EXORCIST: THE BEGINNING, WICKED LITTLE THINGS, THE UNHOLY), a paleontologist at the same university, and the two head home. Later Miranda leaves for a date.

The next morning a jogger finds her naked and unconscious in a park. She's taken to the hospital where the doctors are baffled by her weird skin, strange lab results and inhuman x-rays. Then she wakes up.

Tom shows up too late to stop her from reducing the hospital's staff. He puts her in his car and they head for Mexico. Along the way Tom reveals the truth.

He was once a part of the alien-human hybrid experiments that began in the first movie. Miranda, like her predecessors, was created by mixing human DNA with alien DNA, created from instructions radioed to Earth from space. But Tom had an attack of morality and decided he wanted no part in these experiments. He rescued Miranda from the lab when she was still an infant and raised her as his niece.

He's been keeping her human with hormone injections. But they aren't working anymore and Tom doesn't know what to do. So he decides to find another scientist from that ill-fated project and get his help. Tom’s former colleague, Forbes McGuire (Dominic Keating: HEROES [TV]), lives in Mexico now.

They arrive in a small Mexican town and discover that Forbes still experiments with alien DNA, mostly for his own amusement. The town is full of hybrids and Tom has some close encounters before he locates his old lab partner. Miranda needs medical treatment and when Forbes explains the morally questionable process involved the formerly very moral Tom does some very immoral things. And then when the treatment is complete Forbes tells Tom how dangerous this has made their situation and they really shouldn’t have done it, something you’d think he would have mentioned before.

And then… but that's enough plot to hold you for now. Let’s pause for a

!!!SCIENCE MOMENT!!!:
I don’t have a huge problem with any of the science here. It's not quite implausible. The basic idea – that an alien broadcast contained enough information on genetic engineering to allow us to create alien-human hybrids – is sound and if you accept that you can achieve enough suspension of disbelief to get through the movie. No, I have no problem with the science.

Which doesn't mean I don't have a problem.

Even though this movie is orders of magnitude better than the truly awful SPECIES III, it’s still far from being a good movie. The film has a promising start but gives way too much screen time to Tom at the expense of the far more interesting Miranda and Forbes. The story often wanders and has a making it up as they went along feel. Frankly, it’s often boring and not even internally consistent. The hybrids are portrayed as deadly and unstoppable one moment, but again and again Tom manages to escape them.

This movie can't escape me. It gets two shriek girls.

This news copyright 2007 E.C.McMullen Jr.

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