Some quick thoughts on I Come in Peace (1990)

A.K.A. Dark Angel / 92 Minutes / Media Entertainment

If I wanted to be mean, this straight forward sci-fi action blend between a little of The Hidden, a little of the intergalactic guns/wardrobe of Critters, exploding cars every six minutes, a blind seven foot Tom Everett/Christopher Lambert look-alike alien with brain sucking gadgetry, and Dolph still a bit loopy from The Punisher would be easy prey. I Come in Peace is a ramshackle assemblage of half baked ideas that gets by on the last three things noted in the last sentence. Just brimming with cliché and featherweight characters/aspects employed solely for its meager plot advancement. Not to mention potentially juicy ideas wrapped around a sorely underused good alien cop also on the trail casted to the wayside.

But then again, if I really meant such things, I'd be asking for a Lundgren roundhouse and while my body is twitching on the floor, he'd be lecturing me on the simple genius of Pythagoras' theorem in relation to the understanding of advanced engineering. So my mouth is shut. Even if the above paragraph is true, I Come in Peace is still enormously entertaining at being a brisk little slice of late term 80's goofy action and explosion overkill with a cinema fantastique lime twist.

Powered by a lethargically one-dimensional Dolph (just how we like him), fresh off Action Jackson director Baxley accomplishes the basic premise of cop Drago versus the big bad alien drug dealer, but little else. That's fine since the film is only aiming to work under the promise to deliver it's key art. Don't expect any expounding upon the story's few threads pertaining to the implications of the feds trying to contact the alien or the devastation wrought by an invasion. Just grab some Heinekens and enjoy Lundgren throwing out one-liners ("fuck you, spaceman!"), a host of "that guys" including Sherman "Bub" Howard, Michael Pollard, and Al Leong, and a whole junkyard's worth of vehicular destruction by a hulking man-alien who simply utters "I come in peace."