Brain on hold for this modern take on vampire hunting

Rating: Null/10 (24 October 2000)

Like a Terminator crossed with Peter Cushing's Van Helsing, Snipes' vampire hunter dominates this film with all the subtlety of a stake in the heart. This is not a film for thinking about too much, or too hard (although some of the high-tech changes to the elements of traditional cinematic vampire hunting are imaginative). This is a gory action event, that drags the viewer by the scruff of the neck and doesn't let go. Personally I found the action scenes generally exciting, although sometimes Snipes' casual body count has as much impact and significance as the shadowy victims slaughtered off hand in a flashy computer game.
Norrington's direction is flashy and occasionally impressive. He has successfully exchanged the traditional gothic, stately panorama of Dracula for a more hi-tech, fast moving vision of disease, subculture and degeneration. Ultimately, though, it is the figure of Blade, the cool dude crucified on the cross of his repressed vampirism, that remains with the viewer, and one hopes that in the sequel his character is expanded and deepened.