Amazing  a "comic book film" done reasonably right!

Rating: 7/10 (10 December 2004)

I have no idea why I had never seen the "Blade" films before, especially since it is based on a comic book, (Marvel at that) and a relatively obscure one from the 1970's/80's at that. However, it was decided by my boyfriend and one of his friends that since "Blade: Trinity" was coming out this week that it was about time to get up to speed. Generally, it was a pretty good experience.
Directed by Stephen Norrington ("League of Extraordinary Gentlemen") and starring Wesley Snipes, Stephen Dorff and Kris Kristofferson (did I ever think I would be saying those words?), "Blade" involves a vampire hunter (the title character, played by Wesley Snipes) who has a little of the vampire blood running in his own veins. His mother was bitten by a vampire while she was pregnant with Blade, who was subsequently born a "half-breed"; half vampire  half human. He has the strength and thirst of a vampire, but he is able to walk around in daylight and ages like a human. Together with Abraham Whistler (Kristofferson), a fellow vampire hunter who took Blade in when he was 13 and raised him/trained him, they a pitted against Deacon Frost, (Dorff) a "young" vampire who is not only super cool, but super ambitious as well. He needs Blade's blood to summon La Magra, the blood monster, which would enable him to reign over humans, rather than exist among them, as vampires have been doing for centuries.
I was pleasantly surprised by how stylish and fun this film was to watch. It was slick and Blade is a cool character. The techno score was very appropriate and added to the great action scenes. I particularly thought the early scene at the rave/bloodbath was great. It really kick-started the fast pace of the film and gave us enough background without spelling everything out for us. The only real criticisms I had were in the CGI area  the whole blood monster/antidote thing was pretty over-the-top and should have either been scaled down a bit to work within the production's ability, or handled in a different way completely, because the result was very cartoonish, but not in a positive way.
See this film if you like action films. I'm pretty sensitive when it comes to horror films (read: wuss) and I wasn't scared or startled once. This is a fun, sleek film that was definitely worthy of a franchise. 7/10 --Shelly