Blade

Blade (1998)

Runtime: 120 minutes

Directed by: Stephen Norrington

Starring: Wesley Snipes, Stephen Dorff, Kris Kristofferson, N'Bushe Wright, Udo Kier

From: New Line Cinema

I was happy to see this again. Let me regale you with the reasons why below: 

I hadn't seen any of the three movies in the series for a very long time; henceforth, I realized it was time give the original another spin. Thing is, I always enjoyed the first and second one; it's Trinity that is so piss-poor it put me off from watching the first two. But I've gotten past that and besides, I am sure I'll have plenty to say about why Trinity is so bad.

By now I am sure most are familiar with the basic story of how the title character is a Daywalker who hunts down vampires and he has to deal with a young punk vampire named Deacon Frost who wants to go against the old guard and do something elaborate to make him unstoppable. There's a fish out of water character that accompanies Blade and explains the world, including how vampires are all over the place and control a lot, always hiding in the shadows so their existence is a secret to most humans.

I do think there's some silliness (not all but a lot of it I blame on typical comic book nonsense. For example, I just presume that garish Pearl character is straight from that medium) and as people have noted for years now, some of the late 90's CGI is typical late 90's CGI, meaning it looks terrible in comparison to what we get in modern times. Yet I can still say this is a good movie. It's a bloody vicious R-rated film which has exciting action scenes that are shot coherently. Stephen Dorff as Frost and Udo Kier as one of the old guard vampires is expected casting, but Wesley Snipes as the titular Blade was perfect; he delivered both on the action and on the attitude where he has little use for most of humanity and is pretty gruff in general but still has a nice relationship with Whistler, a surrogate father. The story is not too complex and yet I am fine with that as it was fun and the heroes wrecking dudes was always a joy.

I do have to pay special note to the beginning, which was and is a sweet way to start things out. It's a blood rave turned into an exciting action sequence. Besides it being filmed well, the music (I enjoyed the EDM-influenced soundtrack/score overall) was spot-on. The second tune was cool but the Pump Panel Reconstruction version of New Order's Confusion is not only a tremendous song, but it became iconic and many people recognize it even if they have no idea what the tune's title is, which at least was a common thing in the first few years after the movie came out.