Review of Blade (1998) by Mike

Title: Blade (1998)

Original UK Release Date: 13^th November 1998

Original US Release Date: 21^st August 1998

UK Rating: 18

US Rating: R

Director: Stephen Norrington

Genre: Action/Horror

Plot: Half man half vampire Blade (Wesley Snipes) hunts down and kills vampires aided by Whistler (Kris Kristofferson) and his array of weapons.

Mike's Review

With the trend of comic book characters turned into movies, I thought it would be fitting to go back to one of the best adaptions.

This is the story of Blade (Wesley Snipes) half man half Vampire. He has all the Vampires powers but none of their weaknesses. He battles on the side of humanity against the Vampires in a never ending battle. In this film he goes up against Deacon Frost (Stephen Dorff) who is trying to take over the leadership of the Vampires.

There have been many comic book adaptions over the years. This is the movie version of one of the lesser known characters. Prior to watching this I knew nothing about the character. The film stars Wesley Snipes, Kris Kristofferson, Stephen Dorff, N'Bushe Wright, Donal Logue, Traci Lords & Eric Edwards. Snipes is perfectly cast as the lead character. He gets to use all his martial arts skills and he excels at looking mean and scary. He gets over the constant turmoil he is in being half Vampire and still having the taste for human blood but does everything he can to avoid it. It is Stephen Dorff who stands out as the evil ruthless nemesis to Blade. His over the top performance is perfect as an opponent to Blade and the two play off each other well.

Fortunately the film doesn’t try and tone the violence down in any way. These are pure traditional Vampires. They are mean and evil (and none of them sparkle!) until Blade kills them and they turn into fiery ash!

Stephen Norrington’ direction in this is great and the film uses more blood than any film before. He really doesn’t hold back and its fun and shocks from the very start. The action is amazing, from the martial arts fights to the sword play at the climax. Blood and death continue from the start to the finish of this movie, action horror at its very best.

Comic book movie adaptions have come a long way over the years and so have vampire stories, but if you want to see real vampires and over the top comic characters on the big screen, you really can’t go wrong with Blade.

10 out of 10

Additional Information

Stand out performance: Stephen Dorff as Deacon Frost

Trailer