BLADE (1998) A Film Review by Ted Prigge Copyright 1998 Ted Prigge
Director: Stephen Norrington Writer: David S. Goyer Starring: Wesley Snipes, Stephen Dorff, N'Bushe Wright, Kris Kristoferson, Donal Logue, Udo Kier, Arly Jover, Traci Lords, Kevin Patrick Walls
"Blade" is not only the most recent attempt at commercializing on an old school comic book action hero, but also the newest film that lives or dies with how damn cool it looks and feels to watch. And luckily enough, "Blade" is a triumph of visual brilliance, a great piece of flashy, moody pulp, and a film of mostly style and very little substance. It's a more grizzly "Batman"; a significantly better "Spawn"; and a less philosophical "Dark City." In other words: bitching as hell.
For those of you who don't know who Blade is (read: me before seeing the movie), he's the latest vampire slayer with a twist: he's a hybrid of human and vampire as a result of his mother being bit by a vampire minutes before giving birth to him. He's grown up with all of the strengths that a vampire has, such as invulnerability and the like, but very few of their weaknesses: he can walk comfortably during daylight hours, but he still has to take a serum consisting of blood to ease his nerves.
Blade's fortress of solitude is a giant warehouse in New York City, and his mentor/sidekick/bud is a grizzled old man with a nasty limp named Whistler (Kris Kristoferson, tres grizzled), who has waged a personal war against the vampires that have been in existence for centuries without a whole lot of knowledge and uses Blade, whom he found as a kid in the streets, as his chief weapon. Speaking of weapons, Whistler is the one who makes them, all silver products (the only thing that kill vampires), including one nifty boomerang with sharp edges that when thrown, chops the heads off of a whole bunch of vampires then returns safely into the hands of Blade.
The plot, as it were, concerns Blade and Whistler's ever-going fight killing all the vampires in the world, and it picks one group who live in New York City as the object de scorn for this particular introductory installment. As we are told, the entire world as we know it is just a facade for the vampires who rule the night and feast on us measly humans like cattle. In the opening sequence (which cannot be missed - you may as well not show up at all if you walk in late), one poor guy is led to a midnight rave where the scene soon turns into a kafkaesque nightmare that is saved by the presence of Blade, who proceeds to chop up anyone he can, in a scene so over the top that it could leave anyone feeling sadistically giddy.
This is basically the entirety of "Blade": he finds vampires, and chops them up. A little story is introduced: Blade has to square off against one of the big-heads of the vampires, Deacon Frost (Stephen Dorff, still stuck in the three-day beard, greasy-hair days of yesteryear - oh those were the days, my friend), who's trying to usurp the power from the other vampire heads, such as the big big cheese, Dragonetti (the great Udo Kier), so he can fulfill some prophecy of sorts (does it really matter?).
In the meantime, Blade hooks up with a doctor chick, Karen (N'Bushe Wright, from "Dead Presidents"), who is half-bitten by one vampire early in the flick and is slowly turning into one herself. Saved by Blade, she begins to help him and Whistler in their odyssey, although the only reason she's there is as a sorta romance interest and blatant window dressing (sad, because she was actually very good in "Presidents").
The big plus side to this film is that it's very well-directed. Stephen Norrington gives it a bleak, cool, and half-funny/half-serious feel that turns it into just one big blast to watch. The action sequences are well-choreographed, and have the intensity and humorously violent feel that a comic book film needs to have. When the vampires are killed, they instantly disentigrate, and sometimes when killed differently, even inflate and blow up (a tactic blatantly stolen from John Carpenter's "Big Trouble in Little China").
And the superhero is gleefully serious. Played with an Eastwood-ian inaffectiveness by Wesley Snipes (who's also credited with "Fight Choreographer"), Blade comes off as a man who's deeply tortured, but keeps all his pain deep down, and has a nice costume piece: dark sunglasses, which not only make him look cooler, but also give him that nice touch of hidden torture. All the great superheroes are the ones who have inner pains, and Blade is far from the exception.
It's not a great film. It has very little substance, and the substance it does introduce (like the idea of Blade's refusal to open up to anyone) is dropped after a little bit of being played around with. And the film seems to loose some steam in its second half, when things become all to predictable and a little redundant, even though it's still extremely watchable.
No matter. The final sequence, although a little puzzling (what the hell happened with those 12 head vampires? And is that REALLY the vision of apocalypse?), is nevertheless totally kickass and amazing. A final tete-a-tete between Blade and Deacon is riveting, original, and filled with fits of humor and shocks, all which leave the film off with a nice taste that makes up for any little problems the film had before.
Unfortunately, this film will not be remembered for its story. It falls into the trap of oh so many films that try to launch franchises (most recently "The Mask of Zorro") and comes off as more as an introduction to cooler pastures that may or not be in the near future than ana actual great film. But even if there's not a "Blade 2" or "Still Blading" or whatever they may call it, we can always remember this as another in the line of films that are brilliant in their visual design and sensual intensity.
MY RATING (out of 4): ***
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