Dark Angel (1990) a (wickedly) belated review

There are certain films you see way back when they’re released that you want to see again.  There are others you don’t see but regret having missed and long to catch up with them at some point or another to see if they were any good.

So is the case with Dark Angel, or as I knew it, I Come In Peace.  I’m not quite sure why the film has the two names but when I first saw the trailers, it was advertised as the later rather than Dark Angel.  See for yourself:

Regardless of the title, for whatever reason I was unable to catch the film way back then but always was curious to see it.  Though his range as an actor may be limited, I like Dolph Lundgren.  He most certainly has a strong screen presence, though he’s usually at his best playing cold-blooded villains.

Seeing Mr. Lundgren in a starring role and in a sci-fi/action mix had me intrigued.  I liked the way the original Predator mixed army action with sci fi and this film decided to mix the buddy cop action genre so popular at the time with sci-fi.  Would the combo work?

For the most part, it did.

Now bear in mind, Dark Angel (I’ll refer to it by its video release name) is a very low budget affair and, at times, this is quite obvious.  Having said that, I have to give credit to the film’s makers for pushing that budget as far as they did.  There are an awful large number of pretty impressive explosions in the film along with some great stuntwork which makes this low budget feature look far more impressive than it would have.  The soundtrack, by the way, was created by Jan Hammer of the TV series Miami Vice fame and I couldn’t help but think because of this and the film’s visual style that it played out like a particularly wild Miami Vice episode!

Anyway, the plot goes like this: Detective Jack Caine (Lundgren) loses his partner while the man was in the process of infiltrating a drug deal.  After his partner is killed, a mysterious white haired giant of a man appears and kills off most of the bad guys with the use of a strange razor sharp disc that slashes the drug dealers’ throats.  Afterwards, this blonde haired stranger takes all the heroin and disappears.  As Caine checks the wreckage of this botched drug deal, the Feds move in to claim jurisdiction of the case.

Caine is then forced to partner up with Special Agent Smith (Brian Benben), a too-young and too-cocky Fed whose allegiances are suspect.  While his cocky attitude is a turn off, we, like Caine, are left to wonder if this new partner has a hidden agenda in this case.

As the movie goes along, it becomes clear the menace they face is extraterrestrial in origin.

What does the white haired alien want?  And who is the black haired, equally giant other alien pursuing him?  Can our bickering heroes triumph against something much stronger, faster, and far more heavily armed than they are?

I enjoyed watching Dark Angel but, once again, I can’t help but think that modern audiences might find the film’s pace a little too slow for their tastes.  Still, I enjoyed the meaty script and found that this forgotten little film held up pretty well considering its age and budget.  As it played out, I couldn’t help but feel this is one of those films that might benefit from a modern remake.

Hell, they could get Dolph Lundgren to play the bad guy alien this time around!

So if your taste is like mine and you are curious to see a buddy cop action film married to an alien threat type film, you’ve got it!

An aside: I’ve come to the conclusion that the folks at Shout! Factory either read my mind or are my dopplegangers when it comes to many of the films they’ve recently released.  Dark Angel, among several other films like Without WarningFirepower, Supernova, The Fog, Prince of Darkness, Phantasm II, Lifeforce (I’ll get to these last two soon enough) and the upcoming Escape From New York are all features I’ve recently purchased from them.

You guys keep this up and I’ll be broke in no time!