Blade
Reviewed
by Leonard Heldreth, May, 1999
Blade, a Marvel comic book property,
remains essentially an animated comic book which draws plot elements
from a number of recent films. On the positive side, it's stylish
and fast paced, with many martial arts scenes, excellent special effects,
and some interesting variations on vampire lore. On the negative side,
the plot is a compendium of cliches, and the characterization, with
one exception, is completely one-dimensional.
Blade (Wesley Snipes) is half-human and half-vampire,
and his mission is to destroy all real vampires. His henchman, who
plays Alfred to Blade's Batman, is Whistler (Kris Kristofferson),
who raised Blade from a boy and provides him with weapons and the
serum to keep his blood thirst under control. Opposed to them are
all the vampires, both the pure ones who were born vampires and the
impure ones who were transformed by being bitten and are therefore
second-class citizens in the vampire hierarchy. The pure vampires
and their council rooms and trappings of wealth resemble the sleek,
science fiction settings in which the villains lived in all the James
Bond films. Leading the impure vampires is Deacon Frost (Stephen Dorff)
who, like the Bond villains and most comic book bad guys, wants to
dominate the world. To add a little variation to the conflict, Frost
also wants to resurrect an ancient vampire god, a la Ghost Busters
and any number of second-rate supernatural thrillers. Nothing much
new here.
Similarly, both Blade and Frost are one-dimensional characters
who neither evolve or mutate–they remain exactly the same from
the opening scene to the end. Only Kristofferson injects some believable
feeling and some distinctiveness into his character. The hematologist
(N'bushe Wright) is simply window dressing, and ex-pornography star
Traci Lords (as Frost's vampire girlfriend) summons the modicum of
talent necessary for her part.
Visually the film is nicely done. The costumes, sets,
gadgetry (another Bond echo), and special effects are all top drawer.
Snipes, all buffed up and decked out in leather and body armor, wears
his sunglasses with the nonchalance of a super hero. Dorff is never
really a suitable foe. The vampire mythology is somewhat modified
in that garlic and silver are effective but crosses and other religious
iconography have no power. Other vampire characteristics are preserved–the
strength, extended life span, sensitivity to sunlight, blood lust,
and method of transmission. Vampirism has been stripped of its cobwebby
Lugosi trappings and brought into the scientific world; it's now a
disease that people get from contaminated blood (you make the parallel
with a contemporary disease), and it takes the hematologist about
twenty-four hours to find a cure for anyone who has been bitten recently.
Finding a cure for those who are born vampires may take longer. (One
wonders what type of nourishment baby vampires take?)
All told, the film is a fast-paced and furious adventure
loaded with scenes of Blade stabbing, shooting, decapitating, burning,
staking, and otherwise disintegrating vampires. The ending, of course,
like all comic books, concludes with the promise of a sequel.
