I COME IN PEACE (1990)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, sociological*

I assume that Dolph Lundgren's blossoming stardom led to I COME IN PEACE getting theatrical release, even though in many ways it seems like a cookie-cutter "cops vs. alien marauder" concept. I say "seems" since PEACE-- sometimes appearing under the bland re-titling "Dark Angel"-- is really fairly clever for a Big Noisy Action Film. Possibly the clever touches stem from the co-scripting of David Koepp, who would go on to greater fame with the 2002 SPIDER-MAN and the 2008 Indiana Jones comeback.

Jack Caine (Lundgren) is busy trying to root out a Houston drug cartel known as "the White Boys." As triggering as the name would be today, the vague connotation seems to be that these drug-lords are all upscale criminals, who wear suits and ties as they kill people-- including Caine's partner. Caine devotes himself to finding the killers, though his project is complicated by the fact that several of the gangsters are killed by some mysterious weapon.

Unlike Caine, the audience gets to see that the gangster-killer is Talec (Matthias Hues), a hulking, red-eyed alien armed with a ray-gun and a flying discus weapon much like Xena's later "chakram." Talec steals a shipment of heroin from the White Boys and then begins going around seizing Earth-dwellers, into whom he injects the drug. Talec then harvests endorphins from the bodies of his victims, with the intention of collecting a huge stock before he returns to his extraterrestrial domain. The audience also sees a second alien, a star-cop named Azeck, trying to capture Talec, but without success.

Caine then receives some unwanted assistance from a by-the-book FBI agent, Arwood Smith (Brian Benben). Caine is assigned to team up with Smith on the investigation, and the two law officers spar for a good portion of the film on procedural issues, though Caine usually wins, partly because he recommends following his "instincts" rather than being guided by regulations. Caine is naturally the one who becomes increasingly convinced that the perp has some sort of technology unavailable to regular humanity, while Smith plays the doubting Thomas. However, though Smith is usually the butt of jokes, he's also seen to be a tough and resourceful officer despite being a head or more shorter than his "partner." Caine and Smith get close to the truth-- particularly when a wounded Azeck appears to explain Talec's modus operandi, prior to Azeck disintegrating his way out of the picture-- but it's just at the point that their superiors start trying to shut them down.

Despite some interference from intelligence agents wanting to scarf some alien tech, the main battle is primarily between Caine and Talec, with occasional help from Smith and Caine's girlfriend. One of the amusements of PEACE is that the hulking Hues is shot to look bigger than Dolph Lundgren (the two were both 6'5", though Hues was an amped-up bodybuilder), much the same way Lundgren towered over Stallone in ROCKY IV. The title arises from a nonsense-phrase that Talec utters before he kills his victims-- suggesting that he doesn't actually know what "I come in peace" connotes-- though it leads to one of the nineties' best action-movie comebacks when Caine replies, "And you can go in pieces, asshole!"