Martial Arts, Big Guns, Vampires, and Great Techno Music... what more do you want?

Rating: 8/10 (22 August 1998)

I just got back from seeing Blade and I thought I'd give it a quick review. This isn't the kind of movie critics usually like, but, as they should be, most reviews so far are pretty good.
Let me start of by saying that I don't usually go for the corny comic book style movie OR the usual shoot-em up action flick. I do however appreciate well-choriographed martial arts action and a good horror flick. Blade manages to combine martial arts action with John Woo-style gunplay, a good horror-vampire plot, funny-but-not-too-funny dark humor, and an ausome techno soundtrack. A little something for everyone. It actually works in every catagory and turns out to be one he** of a fun movie.
The directing has that cool music video feal too it and it works perfectly for this type of movie. Wesley Snipes does a good job as Blade and, although sometimes he seems a little too bland, he generally does an excellent job. The rest of the cast does a pretty descent job too.
The martial arts action scenes are some of the best ever. Wesley Snipes manages to combine great fighting with guns to create some highly entertaining action sequences.
There's not much else to say about this movie. The plot is pretty good, the action scenes are GREAT, there's plenty of humor, the special effects are pretty good too, from the numerous vampire death sequences to some pretty interesting characters that I don't want to give away. This is just a plain FUN movie. One of the best of the genre.
ONE LAST THING-- I thought I'd give the FIRST scene of the movie a quick review too. You see, this scene is by far the BEST scene in the movie (don 't get me wrong, the movie is pretty good- but this scene is one of the greatest of all-time).
This scene is one of my favorate action scenes of ALL-TIME. The credits are still rolling and already you get the feel for the rest of the movie. A rave-type club full of vampires attempt to feast on an innocent human as SHOWERS of blood begin to POUR from the ceiling. It becomes chaotic as everyone is going crazy to the ausome techno soundtrack. Blood is everywhere, vampires are every, the camera is rapidly changing back-and -forth between slow-motion and fast-forward, they're all about to feast on this guy when BLADE bursts out to kill some Vamps. Now you have gallons of blood covering everything and everybody, you have Blade kicking people all over with both cool martial arts action and special anti-vampire guns, and of course the techno music is still playing to give the audiance that extra rush. It just can't be explained. This scene alone is worth the price of admission.
Jesse (pulpjes@aol.com)