Spending Saturdays revisiting old–sometimes very old–reviews means regular reminders of films I’d completely and totally forgotten about. This goofy sci-fi action flick hasn’t crossed my mind in years. Maybe decades in the more accurate measurement of time. For what it’s worth, my view of Dolph Lundgren’s acting abilities mellowed quite a bit from the scathing assessment below, I think in part from cable viewings of this very film. My archeological commitment to preserving the original writing with only the most superficial changes compels me to keep in a complete atrociously convoluted sentences. I do not stand by them. My original copy of the script tells me this review was included in the seventh episode of The Reel Thing, which aired on October 15, 1990. The next segment included an interview with director Jim Abrahams, promoting Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael, a feature that, to the best of my recollection, never actually arrived at the local theaters in the town in which our show aired.

The film I COME IN PEACE is an action-adventure epic with a slight science fiction bend. The film stars Dolph Lundgren as narcotics officer Jack Caine, who finds himself investigating a very strange murder involving some drug dealers who were killed by a magnetic flying compact disc. Okay, that’s not exactly what it is, but it’s sure what it looks like. As is standard movie procedure, Caine finds himself with a new partner he doesn’t like very well when the FBI assigns agent Laurence Smith to the case. Smith is your average annoying movie FBI man, who does everything by the book and insists that he and Caine make daily reports on their progress. He also proves he’s a whiz with definitions when he tells Caine, “Daily…that means every day.” The two eventually discover that the murder was committed by an intergalactic drug dealer who’s been spending his earthly business trip killing people in order to steal endorphins from their body and take them back to his home planet where they’re the drug of choice. This all leads to big guns, car crashes, broken glass, and Dolph Lundgren showing off his latest Jean-Claude Van Damme moves. The film was directed by Craig R. Baxley, who previously made the entertaining action flick ACTION JACKSON. He can occasionally make this one fun to watch as well. His main problem comes from Lundgren, who is so completely devoid of acting ability that a rock could have played Caine in several scenes and there wouldn’t have been that much of a difference. Brian Benben fares better as Agent Smith, in a role meant largely for comic relief, and for realizing that alien blood looks like yogurt that’s gone bad. The film is full of plot inconsistencies and terrible dialogue, but Baxley keeps the pace going quickly, and there’s a fairly interesting story at its core.

2 stars.