There’s always a lot of conversation at this time of year surrounding what does and does not constitute a Christmas movie. For some folks, only James Stewart appreciating the joy of existence in It’s a Wonderful Life will do. Others want to watch the Peanuts gang in A Charlie Brown Christmas. Personally, I want to watch Dolph Lundgren fight an alien drug dealer and kick people in the face in Dark Angel.
This 1990 action film is an underrated piece of festive lunacy with an extremely fun if slightly overcomplicated plot, but there are a lot of stunts and explosions to smooth things over. If you doubt its festive credentials, the opening scene involves a guy crashing his car into a Christmas tree lot. You can’t get more Christmassy than that.
Maverick cop Det Jack Caine (Lundgren) is investigating the murder of his partner during a drug raid gone wrong. The botched operation was targeting members of a corporate crime syndicate, the hilariously named White Boys, who tote machine guns, wear designer suits and deal drugs from high-rise offices.
After a large cache of narcotics goes missing and a number of civilians start turning up dead, Jack and his new partner, FBI agent Larry Smith (Brian Benben), uncover the cause. An alien criminal is overdosing people and collecting the endorphins from their brains to turn into … cosmic heroin. Yes, you understood that correctly – he’s using drugs to manufacture different drugs.
Dark Angel is the second film from the supremely underrated stuntman-turned-director Craig R Baxley. In the late 80s and early 90s he directed an incredible triple whammy of underappreciated action movie gold, which also includes Action Jackson – Carl Weathers conducts a car chase inside a mansion – and the utterly magnificent Stone Cold (the greatest action movie of all time: change my mind).
Dark Angel has the wildest ideas of them all. In 1990 Lundgren was hitting his stride as an action star. His screen presence is just the right level of brooding to offset Dark Angel’s bizarre reality, where the war on drugs has gone interstellar, gun fights break out spontaneously and yuppies control the city, taunting the cops from the decks of luxury yachts.
With the alien stalking its prey through a murky urban environment, Dark Angel feels somewhat like an alternate take on Predator 2, which was released the same year. With an alien villain driven by material gain rather than ideology or behaviour, comparisons can also be drawn to the rampaging extraterrestrial hedonism of Jack Sholder’s equally underrated The Hidden.
The “Bad Alien” (Matthias Hues) is 7ft tall, bleach blond and looks like a pro wrestler; he hardly blends in. Beyond his profession, Dark Angel does not care to explore any further backstory. I feel a deep and profound appreciation for a movie prepared to describe its villain as an “asshole from outer space” and leave it at that.
Dark Angel might not be a Christmas movie in the traditional sense: lessons are not learned, goodwill is not spread, faith in humankind is not restored. But cars are chased, explosions are detonated and one-liners are delivered. Plus, the alternative title, I Come in Peace, is most definitely Yuletide appropriate.
So if – heaven forbid – someone in your house wants to watch Love Actually again, why not give Dark Angel’s explosive Christmas tidings a try instead?
• Dark Angel is streaming on Prime Video. For more recommendations of what to stream in Australia, click here
