Good Comic to Movie Adaptation and Good Vampire Story

Rating: 7/10 (15 November 2007)

Eric Brooks (Wesley Snipes), better known as Blade, is a half-human, half-vampire "daywalker" with all the advantages of being a vampire without most of the side effects (though he still craves blood). As such, he has made it his mission to stop the evil vampires (led by Stephen Dorff and Udo Kier) with the help of his sidekick, Abraham Whistler (Kris Kristofferson). As an age-old prophecy comes to fruition, time is of the essence to stop the vampires now... Traci Lords also appears.
This film works, and I'll tell you why it works... because it is a vampire-inspired retelling of the Patrick Swayze classic "Road House". Both films feature tough but sensitive leading men who travel from city to city to bust up groups of hooligans intent to make life miserable for those around them. Both has sidekicks who looks like urban cowboys. Both of them have that sidekick killed by the hooligans, leading to greater revenge. Both have the romantic interest be a doctor, specializing in a field that helps the hero (surgery for Swayze, blood for Blade). There are some obvious differences, but the general theme is more or less the same... this is Swayze's Dalton character if he were a vampire hunter.
And that's really the selling point of this film. Sure, the vampires are cool and the story is cool. And Stephen Dorff is incredibly cool. But if you don't look at this film through the lens of "Road House" you'll be forced to look at through the lens of "The Matrix" with all the stunt fighting and bullet-dodging, not to mention the ubiquitous late 1990s techno music which seems like it was stolen directly from "The Matrix"'s soundtrack. And any film that falls into this trap has no chance to survive in the long term.
Did I like this film? Heck yeah, I really enjoyed it. Vampires, Udo Kier, Stephen Dorff and Wesley Snipes' best role since "Demolition Man" (though still not quite as good). Traci Lords was here (but unfortunately over eighteen). If you like vampires and you like action films, this is probably the best you're going to get... I can't really think of another film. And as far as comic adaptations go, this was one of the better ones, opening the gateway for the hugely successful Spider-Man and X-Men franchises.