Well made 90s actioner

Rating: 8/10 (30 November 2014)

Wesley Snipes has been in his share of instantly forgettable garbage in his career, but in the 90s he was a formidable talent in the action genre. And Blade is one of his signature roles.
This sleek, glossy entry into the action genre is credited by some as leading to the reigniting of comic book properties as workable franchises, but to be honest, I was not aware of the Blade comic series going in, and I'm not too sure how many other people were in 1998.
In the film's opening scenes, we start in a normal looking nightclub, that turns out to be a vampire rave joint where they have blood in the emergency water sprinklers and feast on humans. In comes our hero of few words, identified by some frightened and overawed vampires as Blade, and he wipes out pretty much every creature in the club with a funky looking sword and some cool martial arts move while muttering tough guy one liners. It's a nice, bloody, clichéd opening to the film, and gives you a real pointer to whether you are going to enjoy the next two hours or not.
Blade is the story of a half vampire (Snipes), retaining his humanity through blood transfusions administered by his grizzly mentor Whistler, (Kris Kristofferson in an excellent career reinvigorating performance) who is able to walk around in the day and kick some serious vampire ass. He becomes something of a legendary adversary in vampire circles, and the nutty vampire antagonist Deacon Frost (Stephen Dorff in a rare worthwhile role) decides to invoke an ancient ritual to give him super evil powers to rid the world of the day walker. This is a potentially ludicrous plot that is played straight by Dorff's enjoyably malevolent villain, who is a hard enough man to be a genuine threat without coming across as unstoppable. This is where Blade succeeds where a a lot of films get it wrong. When the villain is too unstoppable, the writers can't work out a way to actually defeat the villain in a satisfactory way and we end up with either a nonsensical rushed resolution or a deus ex machine solution. Not here though. The final showdown is suitably over the top and dramatic, and as an audience we can buy into it.
Coming on the back of The Vampire Chronicles and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Blade was more than a simple cash in. It was an entertaining, lustily violent, well made action film in its own right. This is a high point for Snipes and Dorff, a new type of comic book movie and one of the better actioners of the late 90s.