I could have sworn that I had seen Dark Angel as the title it was released under, I Come in Peace but turns out I had not. I remember seeing the cover of the VHS during my time at the video store and it seemed very much in my wheelhouse for when I was younger. That being said its still very much in my wheelhouse, but for different reasons. I liked the mixture of detective story with sci-fi with just a dash of horror.
Dark Angel was directed by Craig R. Baxley and written by Jonathan Tydor and David Koepp. This very much seems like it fits right in with all of their filmographies. This was just Baxley’s second feature as a director. He showed a way of directing action movies that made it dynamic along with the cinematography. Tydor and Koepp wrote an interesting mixture of detective story and Sci-fi that was set during the time it was written. That’s pretty uncommon for that mixture since its usually set in the future. There are random instances of horror throughout the movie and focused solely on what the bad alien was doing throughout the movie.
Dolph Lundgren, Brian Benben, Betsy Brantley, Matthias Hues, and Jay Bilas star. This is Lundgren’s movie. Not only was he the lead but he was front and center in all of the posters I saw of the movie growing up. The only other person that was there was Matthias Hues since he was the antagonist of the movie. Benben was a fun antithesis to the character Lundgren played. The interplay between the two carry the movie when it isn’t dealing with main plot.
The effects in the movie are kinda weird. The effects for the blood look a little bit like marshmallow fluff, which looked a little weird. The amount of explosions is kind of insane. The stunt team in the movie was able to do some insane stuff that boggles my mind. The music from Jan Hammer is great. The score adds that extra little bit to the movie that lets you know when stuff is about to happen.
Dark Angel is an interesting detective story with sci-fi elements mixed in with a dash of horror whenever the main villain does his thing. I accidentally started an alien theme for the movies I started covering this week. I didn’t mean to do so when I started but I’m sticking with it until I watch Nope this weekend. You can watch Dark Angel on Shudder. I give Dark Angel 8 alien guns out of 10.