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DARK ANGEL
aka
DEATH ANGEL; I COME IN PEACE
Rating: 
USA. 1990.
Director – Craig R. Baxley, Screenplay – Leonard Maas Jr & Jonathan Tydor, Producer – Jeff Young, Photography – Mark Irwin, Music – Jan Hammer, Special Effects Supervisor – Bruno Vanzeebroeck, Makeup Effects – Tony Gardner & Larry Hamlin, Production Design – Phillip M. Leonard. Production Company – Vision p.d.g.
Cast:
Dolph Lundgren (Jack Caine), Brian Benben (Arwood ‘Larry’ Smith), Betsy Brantley (Dr Diane Pallone), Matthias Hues (Talec), Jay Bilas (Azeck), Jim Haynie (Captain Malone), David Ackroyd (Switzer), Mark Lowenthal (Bruce), Michael J. Pollard (Boner)
Plot: While making a drug bust, police detective Jack Caine is witness as the drug dealers and his partner are slaughtered by a tall blonde man with milky white eyes. Determined to avenge the murder of his partner, the rule-bending Caine is partnered with tightass, regulation-quoting FBI agent Larry Smith. But the two of them find that the person they are chasing is really an intergalactic drug dealer who injects people with massive doses of heroin in order to milk the high doses of endorphin produced in the brain, something that is prized intergalactically as a drug.
Dark Angel/I Come in Peace is one of a whole body of early 1990s sf/action hybrid films that took their inspiration from the cops vs aliens plot of The Hidden (1987) – others being Peacemaker (1990), Abraxas: Guardian of the Universe (1992), The Cat (1992), Monolith (1994) and the tv mini-series Something is Out There (1988). Although what really lay behind all of these in terms of inspiration was probably a desire to copy the success of The Terminator (1984) – almost certainly the character of Matthias Hues’ tight-lipped killer alien has been an attempt to create another Arnold Schwarzenegger-type invincible non-human nemesis.
Dark Angel proves surprisingly entertaining, a whole lot more than the mere actioner it might seem to be at first glance. It has been extremely well put together – the action is slick, tight and spectacular. (Director Craig R. Baxley used to work as a stuntman). The scenes particularly of the aliens’ weaponry in operation – vibrating killer CD’s and guns that fires pulsed explosions – are top notch. The idea of aliens harvesting human brains for heroin was first conducted in the amusingly sarcastic Liquid Sky (1982).
But the one element that raises Dark Angel considerably are the characters. Dark Angel came out not long after the Mel Gibson hit Lethal Weapon (1987) and buddy cop films were all the rage and it is almost certain that that has some influence here. But Dark Angel manages to cast this with a highly enjoyable spin. Dolph Lundgren and Brian Benben are inspiredly cast as diametrically opposed personalities – Lundgren wittily plays into the sort of part he is usually typecast as of the macho cop who operates by instinct and bends the rules, while Brian Benben is cast as a slick, cocksure Ivy League by-the-book regulation-quoter. And indeed it is the very joy of the interplay between these two completely different characters that makes the film so entertaining.
Director Craig R. Baxley had previously made Action Jackson (1988) and went onto to maintain a reasonable career as a genre director. His other films include the incomprehensible Deep Red (1994) about the search for a child carrying an alien virus; the worthwhile psycho-thriller Under Pressure (1997), with Charlie Sheen as a fireman who snaps and starts terrorizing his neighbours; and the Christian Anti-Christ film Left Behind: World at War (2005). Most recently Baxley has made a whole host of Stephen King tv mini-series’ including Storm of the Century (1999), Rose Red (2002), The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer (2003) and Kingdom Hospital (2004). Baxley has also made a variety of genre tv movies including the superhero film Chameleon II: Death Match (1999), The Glow (2002) about a conspiracy of immortals, the alien abduction mini-series The Triangle (2005) and the quite amazing The Lost Room (2006) about a quest for everyday objects with mysterious powers.
Copyright Richard Scheib 1993
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