20/06/2013

Blade (1998)

Film: Blade
Alternate title: Blade - The Day-walker
Release: 1998, theatrical
Starring: Wesley Snipes, N'Bushe Wright, Stephen Dorff
Directed by: Stephen Norrington
Next in the series: Blade II
IMDB Page: Link opens in a new window
Description: Blade, the only vampire who can walk in both night and day, hunts his own kind to protect humanity. One day, what seems to be a typical vampire hunt leads him to protect


Hans' thoughts:

This movie is better than I remember it. When I first decided, "I'm gonna rewatch Blade", I had expected to be a little bored during the talking scenes, but actually they were alright. Of course, these are mostly the talking scenes where Wesley Snipes is not there, or either speaks just one line. Wesley Snipes, as good a martial artist as he may be, just isn't a very good actor. Oh, he can do Blade, but the character of Blade in this movie mostly just stands around grunting at everything. Go Wesley...? If you watch this movie, please don't put too much thought into Blade himself as a character, there's not really much to him personality-wise. As for the rest of the characters - they do a pretty decent job based on what they've been given. However, as this is a vampire movie, having people smile because they're happy is not something you see all that often. Oh sure, there's a lot of evil plotting grins, and the comic relief is smiling some of the time. Vampire-wise, don't expect to be creeped out by these things. They're mostly there so the main character has something to punch. Thankfully, this movie stays more true to the well-known vampire legend than most newer incarnations normally would. They also give a pretty plausible explanation for why, say, not all the myths are true. As in, vampires are firmly established in legend, but some things have been added along the way, as is the nature of superstition. I didn't really buy the explanation for why vampires are so prominent in the world though. They give some kind of throw-away line about vampires having political relations with humans but it's hard to see how that would go down, as a politician could just have exposed them to sunlight. I've been bashing this movie a lot in this article but it is actually pretty good stuff. If you like movies like Underworld or The Matrix, then this is for you.

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