The film received worse reviews than its predecessor. On Rotten Tomatoes it has an approval rating of 9% at based on 33 reviews. The site's critical consensus reads "Clumsily exploitative and sloppily assembled, "Species II" fails to clear the rather low bar set by its less-than-stellar predecessor". On Metacritic the film has a score of 19% based on reviews from 13 critics. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C" on an A+ to F scale. At the 1998 Stinkers Bad Movie Awards, the film was nominated for Worst Sequel but lost to "I Still Know What You Did Last Summer".