‘Species’ (R)

"Species" promises far more than it delivers: What if we sent a message into space, and some Alien Intelligence responded with science experiments that are not exactly what they appear to be?

That's exactly the problem facing Xavier Fitch (Ben Kingsley, in a tacit turn more suggestive of the late Donald Pleasence). Fitch, given a new sequence of DNA to combine with human DNA, is creator/curator of Sil (Michelle Williams), a young woman who has been growing at a phenomenal pace but with disturbing side effects that lead Fitch to terminate the project. Sensing her imminent destruction, Sil escapes the secret lab, catches a train to Los Angeles (learning English from television along the way) and emerges there as a drop-dead 21-year-old with an immaculate fashion sensibility.

It's the Sister From Another Planet. This being L.A., grown-up Sil (model Natasha Henstridge) ends up hanging out in a flashy disco, looking for men to mate with and spending an inordinate amount of time shedding her clothes and parading around nude.

Meanwhile, back in the lab, Fitch has assembled a rather pathetic team to track Sil down: one top secret Orkin Man (Michael Madsen working that familiar ennui), a befuddled empath (befuddled Forest Whitaker), a molecular biologist (Marg Helgenberger) and a cross-cultural anthropologist (Alfred Molina). Despite some solid credits on their resumes, these actors come across as the gang that couldn't deduce straight. As for Kingsley, right about now, the extinction of mankind is more immediate than his prospects for a second Oscar.

Among "Species' " many problems are these:

Director Roger Donaldson ("The Getaway," "No Way Out") may have started out aiming for intentional thrills, but ends up with unintentional comedy as his characters do and say the darndest things. ("Something awful happened here," one says, stepping over a particularly messy corpse.)

"Secret lab" scenes at the start of the film seem to have eaten much of its budget, and most of the subsequent action takes place in the disco, a hotel or the hotel's garage, which leads to an underground labyrinth looking suspiciously (or is that suspeciesly) like the innards of assorted "Alien" ships.

Indeed, "Alien" designer and twisted surrealist H.R. Giger is on board as Sil's designer (that's the mutating Sil, not the naked human Sil). Giger's notions are, as always, disturbing, but here they are simply too fleeting to be scary. There's less to Sil than either the horror genre magazines or the previews would lead you to hope.

Why is it when male aliens come to visit, it's usually to hunt, conquer and destroy, all the while keeping their uniforms or fur on; Ms. Alien has apparently come to mate and destroy buck-naked?

Species is rated R and contains nudity and some graphic gore.