#Dark angel film movie#

It’s surprisingly efficient visual story-telling as well as keeping you guessing as to what is going on. Sure, the way the alien kills people risks becoming repetitive but each time a new death is shown a little bit more is revealed about the alien’s plan and just what he is up to. Much like ‘John Wick’ (2014) the fact this film was directed by an ex stunt-man shows, where a simple premise and story is there to hang the action from and it’s a blast. Not only that but, with the exception of a couple of ‘blink and you’ll miss them’ optical-effects near the start almost every stunt or effect is practical and in-camera. Gun muzzles blasts tear through the screen, explosions have a visceral kick and the timing of it all is spot on with every action beat perfectly placed for maximum effect. Sure, ‘Dark Angel’s generic in the extreme but it means there’s no fat to choke on yes, it’s cobbled together from disparate elements but it makes for a tonne of fun and, best of all, it was directed by a former stunt coordinator (and second-unit director on ‘Predator’) so the mayhem is supremely well executed. Yet what IS ‘Dark Angels’s strong suit (and this is vitally important) is the pacing, energy and action of which it has shit loads and it’s all great. It gives off the sensation of having been written by someone who has seen these better films, understood them but can’t quite write up to that standard. The boilerplate dialogue lacks the punch and fizz of better buddy movies so it has none of the wit of ‘Midnight Run’ (1988) or the sass of ’48 Hrs.’ (1982) even though you can feel it striving so hard for that level you feel the film might get cramp with the exertion. So originality isn’t exactly ‘Dark Angel’s strong suit it’s so cookie-cutter it makes a MacDonald’s cheeseburger seem like a bespoke gourmet meal. Maybe there’s more than one drug lord out there and this one isn’t from Earth? But just what is he extracting and why? And who is that other mysterious, alien, gun-wielding maniac constantly attempting to blow him away?Ĭan Caine and Smith solve the case before ‘The X-Files’ is commissioned and steals this film’s thunder? Will Robocop ask for his gun back? And then there’s the most shocking question of all - is this Dolph Lundgren’s best film? Other bodies’ bear puncture marks as though something had been injected or extracted into/out of them possibly as the result of some form of harvesting process, the only residue left being vast quantities of synthetic heroin. Meanwhile bodies are piling up, surprisingly including those of the gang members, many of which seem to have been killed by a highly magnetised compact disc, a piece of future technology so advanced the only logical conclusion is that the film’s script was written in the early 80’s when CD’s were a novelty. These two are so chalk and cheese it’s almost comical… almost.

To help solve his partner’s murder and bring the drug gang to justice Caine’s hard-ass boss gives him a new partner - a straight-laced, by the book FBI agent called Larry Smith.

It has a script so generic and cobbled together from pre-existing material it should’ve been titled ‘Ersatz - The Motion Picture’.ĭolph Lundgren plays Detective Jack Caine, a maverick cop who plays by his own rules and nobody else’s and whose partner has just been killed during a botched drug bust by a gang of nasty bad guys. It’s a buddy-movie like ‘Lethal Weapon’ (1987) before morphing into killer aliens on Earth fighting it out amongst us in a sort of ‘Predator 2’ (1990) meets ‘Highlander’ (1986) mash-up with overtones of an unstoppable sci-fi baddie with long hair as though ‘Warlock’ (1989) was impersonating ‘The Terminator’ (1984) before returning to ‘Highlander’ and ending up as ‘Robocop’ (1987). ‘Dark Angel’ straddles the 80s/90s and reeks of both to high heaven. In fact, in its own way it might be particularly great… if you stretch the definition of ‘great’ to its maximum tensile strength before it violently snaps.

#Dark angel film movie#

What occurred last night wasn’t exactly a miracle (let’s not get carried away here, folks) but even though ‘Dark Angel’ isn’t a particularly good movie it isn’t particularly bad. A low/middling budget Dolph Lundgren sci-fi film from 1990 that I’d never even heard of? “If I make it through fifteen minutes of this,” I thought to myself, “it’ll be a fucking miracle.” The one good thing about low expectations is they’re very easy to blow out the water.Īnd to say my expectations were low going into ‘Dark Angel’, aka ‘I Come in Peace’, were low would be a vast understatement.