Another variation on the alien-policeman-hunting-quarry-on-Earth hook that also informed The Hidden (1987; dir. Jack Sholder) and TV mini-series Something is Out There (1988; dir. Richard A. Colla). Amidst the shoot-outs, explosions and car chases, there’s some interesting character work, allowing action star Dolph Lundgren to imbue his streetwise, kick-ass cop with traits otherwise absent within a macho framework. Unfortunately the film is a vacuum-packed, studio manufactured example of Hollywood’s obsession with narrative devices and supposed character-driven storytelling.

With students packed into universities and colleges, attending misguided and outmoded film education courses, and professional wannabes paying hundreds of pounds to attend seminars and lectures by so-called respected screenplay gurus, the myth of narrative as a central component to film production and theory needs to be exposed for cinema to drag itself out of the over-produced, over-budgeted quagmire it’s currently sinking into. Narrative – as defined by modern film theorists – is manipulative and shallow, hung up on a myth that the character defines the action of the plot whilst in reality the screenwriter deludes themselves with a form of backwards psychology, shaping their characters to fit overly structured plots that bear little resemblance to the human condition, other than the emotions and experiences we project onto the film during and after viewing. Likewise the notion of ‘character development’ is an illusion generated by the cinematic spectacle but misappropriated by theorists and practitioners alike into their elitist narrative regimes. The most important element of the cinematic narrative is consistently downplayed and ignored: the audience is central to the process of cause and effect that occurs during the viewing experience.

Film education and production needs at least to bring the concept of the audience as narrative elements into their dogmatic theories, and place it before such fondly-protected, ridiculous ideas such as story arcs, scene construction and mid-act climaxes. Ignoring the importance of the viewing audience on the film’s construction denies the possibility of thought-provoking, metaphysical, educational and, above all, entertaining works, reducing any potential to the level of aseptic, contrived productions typified by Dark Angel and apparent today as the norm rather than the unfortunate exception.

Dark Angel at the IMDb