Trailer:
"There are worse things out than vampires tonight...like me."
It seems like Buffy has found herself a rival in Blade. Except rather than being a high school heartthrob, Wesley Snipes’ Blade is a badass who brutally hunts down vampires in an attempt to find his mothers killer and reassert his own sense of humanity.
The film opens with Blade arriving at a wet T-shirt party, where the club members are not covered by water, but rather blood. Just as the vampires start feeding on the humans they lured there, Blade shows up and kills as many as he can before they flee and cops arrive. That same night a woman hematologist working in a morgue gets bitten by a surviving vampire. Blade takes pity on Dr. Karen Jenson and brings her to his hideout. They try to heal her before she turns into a vampire and only partially succeed.
Jenson learns that she is slowly turning into a vampire and will be fully “changed” by the end of the month. In desperation she starts searching for a cure. Blade helps her out by saying he will kill her if she doesn’t succeed.
Yet Blade needs the cure just as much. He was born from a woman who was bitten but not yet turned into a vampire. Meaning that he inherited all their powers but none of their weaknesses. Unfortunately he also inherited their thirst for blood and his suppressants are failing to work. Teaming up with Jenson (AKA using her as bait) Blade begins to help search for a cure while investigating the sinister plans of Deacon Frost.
Deacon Frost takes advantage of the chaos created by Blade to convince the rest of the vampire nation to help resurrect a vampire god back into the world and conquer humanity.
Wesley Snipes is great in the role of Blade. Not only does he perfectly look the part from the comics, but he also has enough skill to pull off some of the more emotional moments. Perhaps not as much as he should have though. The screenplay became so centered on killing vampires that it many times neglected the more “human” moments between characters, and many of the actors were not used to their fullest extent. Blade is about a man searching for his humanity and in a way the film forgot about that and never reached the potential of the theme as found in the original Robocop.
Jenson was a fairly useless character in the vampire slaying scheme of things, but she added a nice leeway for the audiences to view events through her eyes. As an outsider looking in, all concepts were explained through her in a nice streamline way, preventing the script from becoming convoluted. Also the addition of her needing to find a cure was a nice touch, even if the build up and delivery was rushed.
Deacon Frost (Stephen Dorf) was a competent enough villain for the film. He was nothing special though. In the end he was a generic evil man looking to do an evil thing for no other reason than he can. These villains tend to be more thin and not very interesting, but at the very least, actor Stephen Dorf gave a good performance and made him enjoyable to watch and follow.
The same cannot be said about his bodyguard and right hand man, Quin (Donal Lougue) who is obnoxious, stupid, and a little annoying for most of the entire film. If The Dude from The Big Labowsky was a vampire, I’d imagine he would be something like this. Yet despite Quin being such an incompetent Blade still can’t seem to ever kill him.
Blade also has his own little side kick, the aging Whistler who crafts all his weapons. The character added a good link to Blades past and also provided hi with a sort of father figure and conscious, helping the bloodthirsty vampire hunter feel a little more relatable.
The greatest highlight of the film was obviously the action. The CGI, when rarely used, no longer holds up very well, but fortunately the film still relied heavily on practical effects. The stunts were impressive, actions scenes well choreographed and the film wasn’t afraid to get into some gore. Almost essential for the movies subject.
In the end the film may not hold up strongly in the plot and characters department, but the movie survives off of the fun action scene, concept, and Wesley Snipes charismatic performance. You might not get done with it thinking you just saw a phenomenal film, but it was a good ride while it lasted. The important thing here is that after years of horrible films, Marvel might not have put out a great one at this point, but at least Blade served as their first competent one.
FINAL RATING: 6/10- 60%
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