Beautiful blonde college professor Helena Mattsson (as Miranda) finishes a lecture and goes to see her uncle and father-figure Ben Cross (as Tom Hollander), a scientist and museum worker. They consider a move to Oxford, where Ms. Mattsson has a job offer. It seems like a good idea. Then, "Species: The Awakening" happens. Cross tells Mattsson about her DNA dilemma and they go to Mexico, where they seek help from similarly positioned Dominic Keating (as Forbes McGuire) and Marlene Favela (as Azura)...In Mexico, Cross discovers nuns are really wicked cool and the cab drivers can take you for a wild ride. Director Nick Lyon gives the movie a much-needed lift with this part. However, Cross is far too serious and accomplished an actor for his part. He might have added some tongue-in-cheek, if asked. Of course, the movie takes itself too seriously. It's really only titillation and alien effects; it's not serious science fiction. The women are beautiful, but diseased. The story is easy to follow, but not really engaging.*** Species: The Awakening (10/2/07) Nick Lyon ~ Ben Cross, Helena Mattsson, Dominic Keating, Marlene Favela

And so we reach the fourth, and final part of a series that never deserved a first sequel, let alone three of them. The slim storyline was told in its entirely in the first movie, and the next three have just been poorly thought-out remakes, redos or continuations of the same situations. This one follows straight-to-video B-movie territory from beginning to end, bringing everything down to its lowest common denominator. There's a misguided but decent scientist hero – Ben Cross, looking embarrassed to be here, a pretty young and nubile actress, Helena Mattsson, whose acting skills are extremely limited, some monster suits and some very bad CGI effects.The storyline kind of meanders from place to place without ever progressing. There's some experimental stuff in a laboratory, more scenes of the alien women on the prowl searching for a mate, and other aliens besides who kill people with their long CGI tongues. The script is very poor and the performances poorer, and there's no decent action or gore to speak of. Just nudity, and even that gets boring after a while, so I really do hope this is the last we'll see of the Species films

MGM's Species franchise, like Wishmaster and The Crow, is a perfect example of the law of diminishing returns. Roger Donaldson's 1995 hit Species was a stylish, self-consciously trashy homage to B-movies. One that has had its scenario rehashed three times now. One would expect a low-budget sequel to revel in sleaze and gore, but since 2004, when the concept was resurrected, 6 years after the cinema release of the disastrous Species 2 (1998), for the direct-to-DVD market, there has been a surprising resistance to the gratuitous ingredients of sex and violence. Species 3 paid little more than lip service to the desires of the target audience and the same is true here. Deviating from the plot line established by the first three films, which featured Natasha Henstridge, The Awakening is a standalone feature that references and reimagines the ideas of the first film. It posits an alternative scenario; what if the scientist played by Sir Ben Kingsley in the original had not kept the young girl like a rat in cage? What if he'd raised her like his own? This could have made for an intriguing exploration of nature versus nurture. Had Henstridge's Sil been allowed to develop in a more normal way could her dangerous, alien side have been suppressed? Alas there is little such depth to this cheap cash-in.Kingsley's role is reinterpreted by fellow British thespian Ben Cross, while Swede Helena Mattsson (who looks a bit like Nicole Kidman) takes over where Henstridge and Sunny Mabrey left off. With only four key cast members and no sign of even Michael Madsen, The Awakening is the weakest of exploitation films. Only the audience is being exploited. A studio like MGM isn't short of cash, so the explanation for the cheapness of this film is clear; they knew they can get away with it and turn an easy profit. Studios like The Asylum have their desperately limited resources to explain their crass and dissatisfactory efforts, but there's simply no excuse for a Species film to be as unspectacular as this.Feeling more like a cross between a vampire movie and a retelling of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein than a sexy sci-fi movie, Nick Lyon's film merely coasts on tenuous links to its predecessors. There are the HR Giger-inspired creature costumes and the promise of flesh is vaguely satisfied but there's not much effort or imagination. Were it not for a few gratuitous moments and aggressive curse words this could have been made for mainstream TV. Lyons does well to pay homage to the original film and its subtext but seems to have forgotten how tongue-in-cheek it all was. Species 4 should have taken things to a cartoonish extreme. Instead what could have been knowingly amusing is just po-faced and embarrassing. From Dominic Keating's terrible Aussie accent to the fact that the alien hybrids use their tongues as weapons, at one point they shoot icicle-like spears from their mouths in bullet-time, the experience is one of contradiction.The original Species really went for it. Utterly shameless titillation. The sequel went further, but in a misjudged, sleazy and misogynistic direction. Perhaps this is why the following two instalments have been so tame. The Awakening, as evidenced by its 15 rating, delivers the bare minimum that one could expect from a film with the Species title. Cautiously exploitative. Like its heroine, The Awakening is in denial, trying its best not to give in to its primitive instincts. There's the potential for a wild ride in its concept and its plot, but Lyons takes it so seriously that the only laughs come unintentionally. This is a film in which a back alley scientist creates sex-crazed human/alien hybrids that run around Mexico! One of them dresses as demonic nun and leaps between rooftops, lassoing potential prey with its tongue; this is potentially hilarious stuff! But it's stripped bare, like its heroine in the final act, devoid of emotion. This is a film of wasted opportunities.

Out of all the Species movies series, this one takes the cake! After the offspring of Sil, this new breed of alien was doing the same thing: finding a mate for her offspring. Then there's another alien who wants to cause trouble by killing everyone in her path. Going to different places for some answers, someone gets offed. Who to trust, who to avoid it's hard to say there. The reason why I don't like this movie is because it's way oversexed, the plot was rather pointless, it was weak, decadent, and played out period. The cast of the movie was fine the only one I thought helped was the guy from the first Species movie as the motel manager who was indeed the original one. Everyone else just didn't sell me. Species 1, 2, and 3 gave out promises: 1 was subtle, 2 was slightly intense, 3 was hardcore and extreme. The 4 one is NOT a keeper in my book! SORRY! 1 STAR!