Dark Angel (1990)

It is December in Houston and the CD player in a Mercedes goes haywire.  Fiddling with it, the driver loses control of his car and crashes into a Christmas tree lot.  He climbs out of the car and suddenly it explodes!  Rising from the flaming wreckage is a giant of a man with pale eyes.  "I come in peace!"

Detective Jack Caine (Dolph Lundgren) is in a car outside a club.  He's listening to a conversation his partner, Ray Turner, is having with a drug dealer.  This is a sting.  However, he spots two armed hooligans heading to a nearby liquor store.  Crap!  Leaving his car, he engages the hooligans and saves the lives of several customers and the cashier.  Unfortunately, that coincided with the drug dealer revealing that he knows Ray is a cop.  By the time Jack gets there, Ray has been killed.  However, a bunch of goons are also dead by having their throats cut.  Something's amiss.

The captain is absolutely furious at Jack and insists he take vacation time.  That is instantly rescinded when the FBI ask to work with Jack on the case.  Jack is given an FBI partner, Special Agent Smith (Brian Benben), a full of himself twerp.  Jack and Smith soon discover that some giant of a man is injecting drugs into random people and then extracting endorfins from their brains.  What craziness is this?  Yes, the villain is a space alien who is synthesizing the most valuable drug in the universe.  Another giant alien shows up and tries to kill the galactic drug lord.

Here is a buddy cop movie with a Predator II vibe.  That's interesting since this was released a couple months before Predator II.  Dolph's flat acting really works for his character.  He's unphased.  The contrast between him and Benben is great.  6 foot 5 Dolph positively dwarfs 5 foot 6 Benben, which is hilarious.  That Special Agent Smith tries to make up for this by Bogarting the big alien gun was also great.  Though he starts as an ass, Smith is a good ally and a fun character by the climax.  Betsy Brantley is just okay as Jack's love interest.  For efficiency sake, she is also the coroner.  There was less chemistry between Lundgren and Brantley than between Lundgren and Benben.

The movie is full of car chases, explosions, gun fights, explosions, martial arts, explosions, and running.  Hey, this is just what I wanted to see.  Top notch B Movie nonsense.  Good popcorn fun!