Before the hard-R superhero movie "Deadpool" there was "Blade"

Rating: 7/10 (4 June 2018)

At this point, I'm painfully bored with superhero films (I'm a huge Joss Whedon fan and I can't even bring myself to watch his Avengers films), but if more film adaptations took a tone like "Blade" I'd probably start showing interest and showing up to the theater again. Almost 20 years before audiences flipped out over the hard-R superhero movie "Deadpool," the lesser Marvel Universe superhero Blade smashed onto the scene with with this ultra bloody tale of modern day vampire hunting. Wesley Snipes plays Blade, a half human/half vampire who can walk in sunlight and uses that to his advantage as he hunts his vampire quarry. In this vampire universe, vampires have an underground secret society, who use their wealth and power to hide their existence and keep themselves well fed. That is until upstart vampire Stephen Dorff decides vampires should come out from the shadows and should claim their rightful place at the top of the food chain. It's a cool story set up, but what makes this film great is Snipes as Blade, the ultra slick direction by Stephen Norrington, and the unapologetic gore that made this movie standout at the time (though it still manages to stand out to this day among superhero films). Sure, "Deadpool" and "Kick-Ass" were super violent, but they were done with a a fair amount of humor. "Blade" is a humorless and completely serious of film, mixing action and horror. In many ways, it's more of a hybrid of "The Matrix" and "The Hunger" and is less similar to any other superhero film of the past 20 years. "The Crow" is probably is probably the most similar of comic book movie to this one, although I don't know if I'd really consider "The Crow" a superhero movie either. Ang Lee's "Hulk" may be the only other superhero movie since Blade to take what I'd consider a serious tone that wasn't afraid to embrace downbeat themes and not worry about being a wide audience crowdpleaser. I think Ang Lee intended his film to be a crowdpleaser, but it ended up not, although I think "Hulk" is highly underrated and I would argue is the best of the recent big budget Marvel films (even if they rebooted the series and do not consider Lee's film part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe). But back to this film in particular, Wesley Snipes commands the screen as Blade, in what' is likely his most memorable onscreen role. His stoic low-voiced man-of-few-words demeanor does border on parody and will admittedly come off as silly if you're not into the spirit of the film, but it worked for me. Also, Snipes, a trained martial artist, has some of the best fight sequences of his career. In terms of story, writer David S. Goyer took the unique approach of not making the movie about Blade's origin story and instead the audience finds themselves thrust into the middle of a long simmering war waged by Blade agains the hidden vampire world. The audience's is introduced to Blade and his secret war by way of N'Bushe Wright, an innocent human who finds herself suddenly caught up in fight when she's attacked by a vampire. Director Norrington, as well as director of photography Theo Van De Sande, get a lot of credit for the film's slick look, with tightly edited action sequences and a cold austere vampire world bathed in cool blues and blacks (until it explodes in blood red). The film also greatly benefits from its' supporting cast, which includes not just Dorff, but also Kris Kristofferson as Blade's human helper, making all his weapons and gear, Donal Logue as Dorff's primary henchmen, Udo Kier as an establishment vampire opposed to Dorff, and even Traci Lords shows up as a vamp. There's also a fine atmospheric score by the always great Mark Isham. Also worth noting are some excellent practical special effects, particularly a memorable sequence with a Jabba the Hutt-like vampire is tortured by Blade's ultraviolet flashlight. However, there are some significant downsides to this film. The main one is that the film's best scene, the vampire rave blood bath, is the first scene of the movie and nothing that follows lives up to it. It really is a dynamite scene, with New Order music blasting, sexy vampires cavorting, and blood spraying down from the ceiling where the vamps have rigged blood to rain down from the ceiling fire sprinklers. That is until Blade shows up and mows them down in his trench coat with guns, stakes, high kicks, and samurai sword. Also to the film's detriment are that the characters are all rather underdeveloped. Sure they all have a backstories, but they are more archetypes than relatable or empathetic characters. The story also meanders a bit and loses momentum at times. There's also a rather lackluster and disappointing climax that didn't seem consistent with the rest of the film's slick modern setting. Writer Goyer has a pretty hit or miss track record and his best films included either co-writing credits by others or were made by strong directors like Christopher Nolan, Alex Proyas, or Guillermo del Toro, the director of the far superior Blade sequel. Left to his own devices, I'm not sure Goyer is that good of a write outside of developing solid story set-ups. Another complaint is that while the films did feature some excellent practical special effects, the CGI is consistently awful throughout the film. The CGI blood looks like Magic Marker, the vampire disintegrations from stakings and whatnot look like a bad TV show superimposed images, and when the vampires swell and explode the CGI just looks completely off. The CGI was distracting and takes you out of the film. Still, despite these fairly major deficits, "Blade" manages to be a memorable horror/action film hybrid that is well worth watching flaws in all, although Guillermo del Toro's terrific sequel should have been the first film to launch this franchise and is the high point of the series.