Time now to look at something vampiric—and here’s a film that, 25 years on, remains not only Wesley Snipes’ defining roles, but was also one of the most notable comic book movies with an African-American lead, two decades before Black Panther. And hell, it’s even considered one of the few comic book movies from around that time that’s not an unwatchable pile of trash—like, say, Spawn. But, a quarter-century on, how exactly does Stephen Norrington’s Blade hold up?
Well, my first impressions was that’s nineties as all hell. Putting aside the fact that our lead is a brooding type clad in black leather with a supply of firearms and katanas, like many an antihero from that decade, the iconic opening takes place in a vampire-habited rave club with one memorable techno tune to go with it. And that’s before blood sprinklers turn out for our undead Gen-Xers. And that’s before Wesley shows up to begin taking them out with an array of weapons that still makes for a most entertaining sequence.
But beyond all the action, the schtick of Blade’s character is that’s not wholly human or vampire—and to his credit Wesley certainly plays him the best he can as a badass who’s also rather conflicted and cognizant of the fact that he’s not exactly a good fit for human society either. We do have N’Bushe Wight as Karen Jensen, essentially his love interest who’s the one trying to keep him on the good path—and rounding out the supporting cast is Kris Kristofferson as Whistler, the grumpy mentor character guiding Blade along in his one-man…one-undead…one-person war.
Visually, it hasn’t aged that bad either—there’s some obvious CGI of the era, but some of it is blended in well, like the way the vampiric foes burn up, and there’s some good practical designs like burnt bodies coming to life, or one particularly memorable obese vampire. The climax gets a bit much, though, but we’ll get to that.
Our antagonist is smarmy young vampire Deacon Frost, played by Stephen Dorff—who also happens to be rebelling against the undead establishment lead by the eternally rasping Udo Kier. Much how Buffy the Vampire Slayer traded Peter Cushing for hip twenty somethings of the day, so the same principle appears to be applying here—and while he’s not the most interesting villain, there is still some satisfaction in watching Deacon essentially create his own movement right under the noses of his stifling elders. His plan is to awaken the spirit of some ancient super-vampire…which doesn’t completely pay off, as we’ll also get to.
We have Blade having to choose between continuing his mission or embracing bloodlust—it’s that kind of thing that is done as well as you get from this era and keeps the film interesting. But there’s the climax—which had to be reshot due to effects of the time not matching what the directors already had in mind, so we have a somewhat unsatisfying fight between Wesley and Dorff. Apparently some living cloud of blood was intended at first…which still sounds kind of silly, but done right, could’ve been somewhat interesting. We don’t get that much of an idea of what evil our evil bloodsucking hipster is really summoning anyway, which is probably the biggest problem plot-wise here.
But that still leaves Blade as an entertaining if slightly flawed experience 25 years on—hell, it’s more enjoyable than many other comic flicks since then, even if it’s visibly a product of the late nineties. There were sequels—the only one probably worth watching is the second one, being directed by Guillermo Del Toro and is as such infused with his distinct visual style. There’s of course been talk of a redo for the current Marvel series with Mahershala Ali in the role—we’ll see how it goes, even if I felt this sort of thing is better off set apart. And we already had a crappy superhero vampire film with Morbius since.
Either way, even if wished they had cast Snipes into the Twilight films instead, that still leaves the original here capable enough of standing on its own…
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