Review of "Blade" That I whipped up for my school newspaper

Rating: Null/10 (28 September 1998)

This is more or less professional.....It's a bit lengthy, but bear with me.
Hollywood, which over the decades has brought countless vampire horror/action movies to the silver screen, now spawns yet another series of blood-guts-and-gore filled thrillers-from this summer's "Scream 2" and "I Know What You Did Last Summer" to the more recent Wesley Snipes film, "Blade."
The latter movie leaves an incredibly mixed impression, so much so that I am still not entirely certain whether I enjoyed it or not. It is a peculiar mix of fast-paced, "edge-of-your-seat" action and a plethora of gruesome scenes, all shown in pitiless up-close detail.
Blade, portrayed by Wesley Snipes ("US Marshals," Money Train") is a half-human half-vampire whose mission it is to find and destroy the vampire who killed Blade's mother and turned him into the "freak" that he is.
Blade saves and teams up with Karen, played by N'Bushe Wright ("His and Hers," "Dead Presidents"), a doctor who in a matter of days invented the cure for anemia-a form of which supposedly makes vampires what they are-that real-life doctors took decades to discover.
Together, the two hunt out vampires, led by the charismatic renegade Deacon Frost, played by Stephen Dorff ("City of Industry," "Blood and Wine"), who takes over the grand council by neatly disposing of the former leader and cowing the rest of the hardcore vampires into submission with the help of a host of fellow humans-turned-vampires.
All of this transpires among chaos wrought by the incompetent handling of scene changes by director Stephen Norrington ("Death Machine," 1994). Someone ought to let the man know that although there are indeed 24 scenes per second in modern movies, it is absolutely unnecessary to make each one of those scenes show a scene from a different camera. The movie would be a lot more coherent if it were not for the psychedelic shifting of camera angles during all of the intense scenes.
In addition to having to make sense of the essentially senseless change of viewpoints, any viewer who is also an avid vampire fan is forced to adjust him or herself to the idea that crosses and several other sure-fire vampire remedies do not, indeed, work against vampires.
To be sure, garlic and silver bullets-in this case the size of a grown man's forearm-do indeed work, but only if driven through the heart or head. Even burning does not finish off these vampires, as Blade finds out within the first 15 minutes of the movie.
Still, one must give the movie credit where credit is due. The special effects, jumbled as they are, are nevertheless impressive, from the majestic, if somewhat Spartan and computer animation-reeking, grandeur of the temple of the Blood-God to the sped-up passing of the of the days and nights in the city.
However, the most redeeming features of the movie are the martial arts scenes that rival Jackie Chan in his new movie "Rush Hour," and sword fights that make the "Highlander" series' Adrian Paul look like a rank amateur.
The realistic, fast-paced action scenes almost make up for the numerous incongruities of the movie-Blade looks surprisingly like Batman with added bulk, the moon above the city is always full, despite the fact that the movie itself takes place over a span of several days, and the police attempt to shoot Blade down despite him having an innocent civilian with him. The obvious fakeness of the bodies flying through the air is not even worth commenting on, being a usual and expected sight in all action films. Apparently no one has as of yet devised a way to avoid flying bodies looking like carelessly tossed rag dolls.
And of course, all of this is sprinkled-literally, in one of the opening scenes- with prodigious amount of stage-blood which, to give the movie more credit still, actually looks like blood rather than grape jelly.
My advice to the unsuspecting victims of this vampire film is this-leave anyone over the age of 30 or so at home, unless they are the bloodthirsty type. In that case "Saving Private Ryan" will provide them with nearly all the blood, severed limbs and weak plot, and none of the profanity of "Blade."
And forget about the concession stand's existence altogether-the movie is not for the easily disgusted, and those Twizzlers and Skittles will be sorely regretted within the first half-hour, iron stomach or not. The exploding heads never fail to do the trick.