Dolph Lundgren remains one of the 80s and 90s most beloved action stars, standing proudly alongside contemporaries like Jean-Claude Van Damme, Sylvester Stallone, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Lundgren even enjoyed his breakout role starring opposite Stallone in the Rocky franchise while working extensively with Stallone and Van Damme in movies for over three decades. From big-budget action releases to DTV favorites, Lundgren has an extensive list of credits since his debut. However, there is a film that Lundgren starred in that remains a mostly forgotten sci-fi action obscurity.

Throughout his career, Dolph Lundgren has mixed in several genres when choosing his starring action movie roles. He has taken on regular tough-guy action hero roles in movies like Red Scorpion, Men of War, and The Expendables. He has also ventured into more fantasy-based releases with movies like Masters of the Universe and the Marvel Comics film The Punisher. However, he also has several sci-fi action roles to his name, from his Universal Soldier franchise to the highly underrated and bizarre I Come in Peace in 1990.

What I Come In Peace Is About

A Houston Cop Goes To War With An Alien Drug Dealer

Directed by Craig R. Baxley (Action Jackson, Stone Cold), I Come in Peace is a sci-fi action movie with Dolph Lundgren portraying Houston police detective Jack Caine. He is a man on a mission, set on wiping out a gang of white-collar drug dealers who killed his partner. While Caine is trying to find ways to bring down the drug dealers, even while the local law enforcement agencies seem willing to turn a blind eye, he quickly learns that some of the recent drug deaths are extraterrestrial in nature.

Caine is forced to team with a by-the-book young FBI Agent named Larry Smith (Brian Benben), and they soon learn that several recent drug-related deaths involve corpses filled with heroin but killed by a puncture wound to the forehead. The killer is Talec (Matthias Hues), an alien drug dealer who is extracting endorphins from people’s brains, which he then uses to create his own addictive drug that he sells on other planets. An intergalactic cop named Azeck (Jay Bilas) shows up and informs Caine that an invasion is coming if other drug dealers learn what Talec is doing.

I Come In Peace Is Extremely Ridiculous (But Still Worth Watching)

Like most Dolph Lundgren action movies, this is high on action and the story is just ridiculous enough to make it highly entertaining while enjoying the fun battles and fist fights. The film has everything a fan of Lundgren’s action movies could want. He is forced to team up with another officer who is trying to hold him back and stop him from taking down the bad guys. He is a lone wolf who realizes that even his superiors are corrupt, meaning he has to fight the bad guys with little to no backup.

To add to the ridiculous nature of I Come in Peace is the fact that Lundgren has to battle an alien. This is a product of its time, with the aliens looking like a villain from any variety of 90s movies and both Tarec and Azeck looking like they could have come straight out of a Mortal Kombat movie. The way that Tarec develops his drug is ridiculous as well, but in the end, this movie leans into those aspects of the story and offers something that is meant for sci-fi action fans to enjoy on a more basic level.

Dolph Lundgren still has a soft spot for I Come in Peace and feels it was one of his better movies (via Den of Geek):

“That film was well directed too, by Craig Baxley, who was a stunt coordinator who did a great job. It was a fun film, because it had the humor and the hi-tech weapons and the chick. It was cool. It had a great villain, that East German decathlon champion who did all his own stunts. Amazing, this guy was such a great athlete, and you couldn’t fake stuff like that in those days. There was no green screen. You had to do it for real.”

I Come in Peace has lower Rotten Tomatoes scores from critics and the audience, although that is expected from an action movie like this. Critics give it a 40% score, while the audience sits at 46%. One audience member wrote, “A great movie of its time, the less you know beforehand the better.” Meanwhile, even critics’ reviews praised one aspect of the movie, with Dustin Putman of TheFilmFile writing, “[I Come in Peace] is junk food for action die-hards.“

Jack Caine Is One Of Dolph Lundgren’s Best Action Hero Roles

Jack Caine Has The One-Liners & Violent Nature

Jack Caine is not only one of Dolph Lundgren’s strongest characters but one of the best action movie roles of his career. He is tough, no-nonsense, and all action. He even has the great quips that action movie stars of the 90s were known for. One of the best lines was easily when Talec said he comes in peace, and Jack Caine said, “And you go in pieces, a**hole.” While I Come in Peace was full of action movie clichés, Caine remains one of Dolph Ludgren’s best characters and deserves to stand alongside Ivan Drago and Andrew Scott as the best of the best.

Source: Rotten Tomatoes