Move over Buffy, here comes Blade!

Rating: 7/10 (23 September 2003)

Before watching this film, I had relatively little knowledge of the comic book character Blade. I'd only seen him as a special guest' once or twice on the animated series of Spider-Man I was watching when I was in my early teens and the only things I remembered, were that he was a vampire hunter and that he seemed to be a native American. In the film version dedicated to Blade, he still hunts vampires, but instead of being a native American he is black. I, for one, do not care, but if there would be a film with a black Spidey, an Asian Wolverine, a blue Hulk or a black Kingpin in a Spider-Man film, I don't think I could bare it. Now I'm not judgmental or something, so I would not dismiss different colored characters immediately, but I guess for some characters it would be harder for me to stomach, because I like them more than others.

Getting back to this film, I must say that it starts off great, with an original insight into the lifestyle of modern vampires and some good old action. The film just immediately finds it's pace and luckily it stays on it for the bigger part of the picture. The contributors to the films capability to do that the actors. Wesley Snipes is good as vampire hunting Blade as is Kris Kristofferson as his elderly sidekick Whistler. The best performance though, in my opinion, comes from Stephen Dorff, who not only seems to enjoy playing Deacon Frost but seems to actually become Deacon Frost just for the take of each scene he is in. He doesn't just act Frost, he breathes Frost, he IS Frost!

The direction of the film, is OK. Nothing great, nothing bad. The choreography of the action sequences is mostly good and there are just some minor things (which are present in almost every film) that could have been improved in those important departments (important for an action film that is!). The things I do not like about this film, I would like to blame on the script. First of all I feel that Blade's personal drama could have gotten a bit more attention, so that he could have more depth as a character and second of all I didn't quite like the ending of the film. Why? Well, first of all, the ending is somewhat predictable. Secondly, I felt that it could have been more original and spectacular. I mean, throughout the film Frost makes such a big fuss about La Morga, that in the end I couldn't believe what kind of wuss the prophecy foretold. Last and maybe least, the lines in the end aren't too good. Well maybe that is putting it a bit too harsh, but Blade screaming Frost' over and over again seemed a little lame and unoriginal to me.

7 out of 10