I Come In Peace (aka Dark Angel)

Drunk on VHS Box Art Gallery 

Dolph Lundgren is HUGE! You tend to forget how big this guy is until he's standing next to an average height guy like Brian Benben. Dolph next to Stallone is not a normal comparison Because Stallone is a midget! Benben on the other hand is 5' 8”, completely average and of average build. Dolph is a foot taller than him and twice as wide! He's like a living, breathing skyscraper! I wonder if he has a problem with fainting because the air is so thin up there. Oh course not, he's Dolph Fucking* Lundgren! (*citation needed, middle name may not actually be “Fucking”)

As it turns out, his middle name...is Dolph

I Come in Peace, for some reason called Dark Angel (a terrible name) everywhere except North America, is cops vs aliens. Lundgren is the standard “cop on the edge”, we find out he has recently disappeared for 8 days. They make a big deal out of it because according to the chief “a week would have been OK”. On a stakeout he notices a pair of poor schlubs robbing a local liquor store. While he's kicking the shit out of them the agent he was surveilling gets shot up by a ruthless gang of investment bankers called “The White Boys”. They get theirs soon enough when the bad alien (played by the always AWESOME Mathias Hues, in one of his very limited  roles on the big screen) takes them all out with a razor sharp and utterly deadly compact disc, a new technology back then! Jack Caine (Lundgren) gets back in time to discover everyone dead from mysterious causes and all the heroin is gone.

The name is dumb, but that box rules

The cantankerous police chief demands Jack take time off. The chief does this approximately 4 times during the movie, but Jack never seems to make it. I suppose it would have been a much duller film if he had. They could have called it “I Come To The Beach”. Thankfully for the viewing audience the alien keeps coming back to cause destruction and it's up to Caine and Smith (Benben) to save the day!
We learn from a good alien that the bad alien (to be called BA from now on) is injecting people with massive amounts of heroin to create endorphins.  If the universe were a trailer park, endorphins would be the Meth. The collection method for these endorphins is so brutal it makes me squirm in my seat a little.

Stabby Stabby

I love pretty much everything about this flick. Dolph plays Jack with a mellow cool and Benben is a perfect counterpoint to him with his wound too tight FBI agent, Smith. Hues destroys as the BA, he says one line in the film and yet maintains such a high level of threat and menace you know you'd shit yourself if you encountered him in real life. The dialog can be a little groan heavy at times, but I can't hold that against it. That's just how movies were then, 10 minutes of action to one groan worthy line was the golden ratio. I Come In Peace is a great flick to gather a bunch of friends together, drink a lot of hooch and laugh for an hour and a half at. You'll be quoting the climactic one liner for the rest of your life. “I come in peace” “and you go in pieces, asshole” delivered like a boss!

5 Brutal Head Stabbings out of 5    

Invasion! - Canadians Can Be Funny Too

Invasion! (AKA invasion) (AKA Top of the food chain) (AKA Welcome to Exceptional Vista) - I love it when movies have a dozen titles!

“A genetically engineered band of devil worshiping serial killers or a Sasquatch type thing? I don’t like the sound of that” - Dr. Lamonte

There’s a reason why there are no Canadian TV networks broadcasting in America. The Canadians have a unique sense of humor, to say the least. Invasion! Is a pretty decent representation of this sense of humor, dry as the mojave and delivered in the best deadpan found on the planet outside of Britain. It’s not a bad movie (far from it!), but I don’t think I would recommend it to anyone out of fear they wouldn’t get it. Imagine a slightly more sanitized version of Sam Raimi or early Peter Jackson films.


Would you like to perform the copulatory act?

Dr. Lamonte (Campbell Scott) is an atomic scientist on vacation. While visiting Small Town, Anywhere (named Exceptional Vista) he discovers locals who are not quite right in the head as well as signs of some kind of beast killing people. Turns out that the cause of the insanity amongst the townsfolk is due to a local “nut accident” forcing all the normals to evacuate the town. The ones who stayed were crazy as a loon. The one seemingly regular girl who stuck around is Sandy Fawkes (played by the captivating Fiona Loewi), though she does has an odd affinity for her brother Guy (Tom Everett Scott of an American Werewolf fame), get it! Guy Fawkes! Remember Remember the fifth of November, clearly a joke of greater cultural significance to the Canadians. They discover a sinister plot by aliens to farm humans as food and it’s up to the doctor to fix everything, none of these other "nuts" are up to the task.


Campbell Scott

The jokes are sophomoric and the effects are very low budget, but it seems like this is all done very much on purpose. The movie is a lot of fun and the ending, which I won’t ruin for you, is expected. The movie couldn’t realistically end any other way. You’ll know what I mean when you watch…Invasion!


Fiona Loewi

7 out of 10

9 out of 10 for Fiona