My Review of Blade (1998)

 

Written by David S. Goyer

Directed by Stephen Norrington

Blade (to Karen): "You better wake up. The world you live in is just a sugar-coated topping! There is another world beneath it: the real world. And if you wanna survive it, you better learn to PULL THE TRIGGER!"

I've been talking about Blade recently on Twitter. First with the character's appearance in Deadpool & Wolverine and also because of the MCU's slow movement with a certain movie. It was enough to make me go back and watch this movie, which I haven't watched in a very long time.

As we know the title character Blade aka Eric Brooks (Wesley Snipes) is a Dhampir. In the opening flashback, we see his mother, Vanessa (Sanaa Lathan) being attacked by a vampire and then going into premature labour. Then it appeared that she was dead and thirty years passed.

In those thirty years, Blade had made a name for himself as a ruthless vampire hunter, trained by Abraham Whistler (Kris Kristofferson) and going through vampires in a rave club with a certain panache. Blade's action also drew attention of the main villain of the piece.

The villain of the piece being Deacon Frost (Stephen Dorff). He's an ambitious upstart vampire with designs on conquering the human race and he's got a group of supporters that provide enough of a hindrance to Blade. In particular there's Quinn (Donal Logue), who does seem to lose his hands a lot but at least provided entertainment as a foil to Blade.

Then there's the quasi-love interest of sorts with hematologist, Dr Karen Jenson (N'Bushe Wright). She's a good romantic lead for Blade - smart and quick witted, able to hold her own when things escalate with Frost's grand scheme. She's also the one who gets him to drink blood at a crucial moment when he's nearly dead.

Deacon's scheme was ambitious with the Temple of Eternal Night being the big catalyst for his plot. The reveal of Vanessa having survived and her connection to Deacon certainly put Blade in a tough position. As villains both Deacon and Vanessa are excellent antagonists to watch and I greatly enjoyed watching Blade bringing their plans to a standstill. Deacon's demise alone was delightfully explosive.

- An epilogue scene had Blade dealing with a vampire in Moscow. Made a change from the very sunny location of Los Angeles.

- A deleted scene had director Stephen Norrington play Michael Mobius. 

- Standout music: Solitaire's Eclipse and David Hykes Rainbow Voice.

- Chronology: 1967 in flashbacks and 1997 for the majority of the movie, set in Los Angeles.

Blade as a movie does possess a fun, almost schlocky vibe to it with Wesley Snipes looking effortlessly cool as the lead character. The fight and kill sequences are good, the villain are a campy menace delight and there's a decent love story in there too. 

Rating: 7 out of 10