Take Highlander and mix in elements from any sort of slasher film you want, throw in a few scenes of detective work in which we've got a ‘by the book' guy and a ‘follow my instinct' guy at odds with one another and you've more or less got I Come In Peace, or as it's been titled this time around by Shout! Factory and by MGM before that, Dark Angel. Directed by Craig R. Baxley, who worked as a second unit director for such luminaries as Walter Hill and Don Siegel and who brought us such gems as Action Jackson and Stone Cold (long live The Boz!), it's about as brainless as an action movie can get but you can't help but have fun with it.

This time around, Dolph Lundgren plays a Houston vice cap named Jack Caine. He's the type of guy who gets things done without worrying too much about the rules. When he's on a stakeout and winds up stumbling into a crime scene where a whole bunch of the ‘White Boys' gang members have been killed by a undetermined weapon, his superiors team him up with a Federal Agent named Arwood Smith (Brian Benben). From here, the pair tries to figure out who or what killed those hoods, with some help from Caine's girlfriend, a doctor named Diane Pollone (Betsy Brantley).

As it turns out, the bad guys were killed by a giant space alien (Matthias Hues) with a mullet and white eyes who mumbles ‘I come in peace' to people before he shoots them up with heroin and then drains them of their endorphins. See, he's a space dealer, really. He's also got really neat flying discs that will chase you and cut you once he launches them your way. Science! On his home planet, human endorphins are used to get high so in order to create that endorphin rush in his victims, he shoots'em up full of smack, which explains why he crashed the White Boys' party and made off with the dope. What Jack and Smith don't realize is that he's in turn being followed by a cop from his own home planet (Jay Bilas), but when the bad guy offs the good guy and Smith winds up with the dead good guy's space gun, it's going to be up to he and Caine to save the day.

Performance wise, this is probably exactly what you'd expect. Lundgren shows some seriously limited range here but he's fun in the lead role, making wise ass comments to Smith at every opportunity but surprising us with his love of art and fine wine, an interesting contrast to his penchant for going to titty bars to think. He's certainly a complex character, this Jack Caine, and if Lundgren doesn't necessarily carve out a place in the history books with his performance here, well, he gets to beat people up and shoot people and drive fast. He is good at these things so we accept him at face value. Brian Benben, which is fun to say a few times in a row as fast as you can, plays the weaselish FBI agent well enough that he makes an interesting foil to Lundgren's tough guy persona. Of course the conflict that exists between the two main players is as much a part of the movie as the conflict that exists with the drug dealer from outer space, making this atypical idea a fairly typical buddy cop movie, but again, lots of stuff blows up, there are some boobs on display, and there's lots of punching and kicking. Look for the instantly recognizable and always weird Michael J. Pollard in a small role as an informant named Boner. That's got to count for something too.

Baxley keeps the action moving and the film never overstays its welcome, coming in just under half an hour in length, which proves to be just right. The movie hasn't aged well on any level at all, really, but that's where the half the fun of a film like this comes from. Big, dumb and violent, Dark Angel is pretty much a perfect popcorn movie and there's nothing wrong with that. It gives you pretty much everything you'd want it to and it's the very definition of big dumb fun.

Dark Angel debuts on Blu-ray framed at a 1.78.1 widescreen aspect ratio in a really nice looking AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer. There's the odd speck here and there but overall the picture s quite clean and shows very nice color reproduction. The oranges that show up in the scene with the fire are bright and bold without looking artificially boosted or bleeding all over the place. Black levels are nice and strong and while the image does look like the product of its time that it is, there's nothing wrong with that. Detail consistently surpasses what standard definition ever offered (think back to the MGM MOD release) as does texture. You'll notice this not only in the close up shots of the cast throughout the movie but throughout the background as well. A good example of this is the scene early in the film where the robbery takes place and you can note dirt and grit on some of the products in the store that could use a good dusting. There are no obvious problems with compression artifacts nor is there any obvious noise reduction or edge enhancement. All in all, this is a nice, solid transfer that feels very true to the source material.