 Tagline: Vampire Hunter Wesley Snipes stars as the tortured soul - half man, half immortal. Blade sharpens his lethal skills under the guidance of Whistler (Kris Kristofferson), his mentor, guardian and fellow hunter of the night. When the blood-thirsty Immortals' lord, Deacon Frost (Dorff), declares war on the human race, Blade is humanity's last hope for survival. Storyline: In a world where vampires walk the earth, Blade has a goal. His goal is to rid the world of all vampire evil. When Blade witnesses a vampire bite Dr. Karen Jenson, he fights away the beast and takes Jenson back to his hideout. Here, alongside Abraham Whistler, Blade attempts to help heal Jenson. The vampire Quinn who was attacked by Blade, reports back to his master Deacon Frost, who is planning a huge surprise for the human population. Written by Film_Fan Cast Notes: Wesley Snipes (Blade/Eric), Stephen Dorff (Deacon Frost), Kris Kristofferson (Abraham Whistler), N'Bushe Wright (Dr. Karen Jenson), Donal Logue (Quinn), Udo Kier (Dragonetti), Arly Jover (Mercury), Traci Lords (Racquel), Kevin Patrick Walls (Krieger), Tim Guinee (Dr. Curtis Webb), Sanaa Lathan (Vanessa Brooks), Eric Edwards [I] (Pearl), Donna Wong [II] (Nurse), Carmen Thomas [I] (Senior Resident), Shannon Lee [I] (Resident). User Comment: Chris Dennis (dennizman) Bristol, England • Blade is a fantastic action/thriller that keeps you captured for the whole duration and Wesley Snipes delivers what I would say to be his best performance yet. This film has everything that you would ask for in an action/thriller, it has plenty of blood, guts and gore, a twisted, disturbed bad buy, moments of humour but most importantly a very good story line with plenty of twists. Their is constant action throughout the film with breathtaking stunts and effects, Wesley Snipes fighting movement is fantastic. This film is in my opinion a must see, Wesley Snipes cool, solid appearance makes this film and I can't wait for the sequel 'BLADE 2' being released next year. My IMDB Rating - 9 out of 10 Summary: Exhilarating and Exciting Action/Thriller Masterpiece! Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Kenneth Brown on July 6, 2012 -- Lest ye forget, it wasn't so long ago that comicbook adaptations didn't pull in countless millions at the international box office. It wasn't long ago that fanboys could only dream of seeing their favorite superheroes fully realized on screen. And it wasn't long ago that the seemingly ever-fledgling genre was the laughing stock of the industry. Aside from a few upstanding citizens like Superman: The Movie and Tim Burton's Batman, comicbook movies were either laughable, corny, or laughably corny. But the early 1990s gave way to Image Comics and a darker breed of hero; a new crop of cold, cynical antiheroes who rejected flashy spandex and boyscout heroics in favor of black leather, bullets-n-blades, and enough bloody violence to attract a curious, superhero-leery crowd. Marvel and DC began dabbling in darker material soon thereafter and Hollywood, ever vigilant in its analysis of the market, decided it was time to cash in on the growing antihero phenomenon. Enter a decade marked by the likes of Batman Returns, The Crow, Judge Dredd, City of Angels, Spawn and, of course, Blade. They weren't Hollywood's first foray into the darker panels of comics -- Heavy Metal, Conan the Barbarian, Howard the Duck, The Punisher, Burton's Batman, and even Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles preceded them all -- but each successive film brought with it enough clout and profit to make the next project on the horizon that much more lucrative. Without Blade and its game-changing success, we wouldn't have X-Men and Spider-Man, at least not as we know them. And without X-Men or Spider-Man, we wouldn't have most of the superhero films we enjoy today. But is Blade any good? More importantly, after almost fifteen years, does it still hold up? Or does it deserve little more than our thanks for the crucial role it played in propelling the comicbook genre into the future? Blade's mother was attacked by a vampire while she was pregnant. She died but he lived, and he'd undergone certain genetic changes. He can withstand garlic, silver, even sunlight. And he's got their strength. This time tomorrow, all those wounds of his will be healed. He still ages like a human, though. You see, vampires age slower than us. Unfortunately, he also inherited their thirst. First and foremost, yes, Blade still entertains, and yes, it still has a soft spot in my heart where it's free to plant a stake whenever it likes. Does it hold up, though? Not so much, especially when compared to its vastly superior sequel. The story itself isn't a problem -- Blade (Wesley Snipes), a superhuman vampire hunter blessed with all the creatures' strengths and hardly any of their weaknesses, faces a growing threat from Deacon Frost (Stephen Dorff), a renegade vampire hellbent on resurrecting a blood god and subjugating the human race -- and the performances are a cut above, at least when it comes to '90s comicbook films. Snipes is Blade, even though he seems dead set on posing, breaking character to spout cheesy one-liners, and sliding his sunglasses on his face as if it's some sort of pro-wrestling power-up. He takes Blade seriously, and that goes a long way toward making the vampire hunter and his world that much more intriguing. It's Dorff, though, that almost runs away with the film. An underrated villain's villain, Dorff transforms Frost into a rage-infused whirlwind and hurls himself against his unshakably stone-cold nemesis with devilishly frenzied fury. Never mind the fact that he bears little resemblance to his comicbook counterpart. Never mind that the two couldn't be more different. Dorff is a perfect counterbalance to Snipes, and his clashes with Blade, the vampire council and, really, anything that dares to challenge his authority are the lifeblood of Marvel Comics' first big Hollywood hit. The rest of the cast isn't so lucky. Kris Kristofferson is admittedly fantastic as Blade's mentor and only friend, and does plenty of heavy lifting during Snipes' dramatic scenes. And Donal Logue, a character actor you'll recognize from... well, just about everything, still manages to drum up plenty of good laughs with his cocky, rockabilly henchman shtick. But most everyone else struggles. N'Bushe Wright is out of her depth as a recently bitten hematologist on the verge of turning into a vampire. Unsure, wooden and even vacant at times, she fails as a romantic interest, a damsel in distress and, eventually, as a shotgun-toting, fist-flinging female lead. Udo Kier cranks out yet another chilly European baddie with all the conviction of a stagehand, Sanaa Lathan is asleep at the wheel as Blade's mother, Arly Jover is a snarling blank slate as an icy vamp, and the other humans, familiars and vampires that frequent Frost's circles are pure '90s cinematic kitsch. David S. Goyer's dialogue is just as hit or miss, and tends to come apart at the seams if it's given to anyone other than Snipes, Kristofferson or Dorff. And even they have trouble with a few questionable lines. (Gems like "you tell him it's open season on all suckheads," "my mother used to say a cold heart is a dead heart," or "I got two new hands and I don't know which one to kill you with!" Or my personal cheeseball favorite: "Some motherf#$%ers are always trying to ice-skate uphill." Then there's the shootouts, sword fights and vampire kills, which never quite live up to the opening rave massacre. It's all reasonably thrilling, in a mindlessly bloody kind of way, but it's also hindered by whiplash editing, hyperactive cuts and dated CG effects. For every satisfying strike and battle, there's a cartoony disintegration, a silly weapon, bubbling and bursting heads, the regenerated arm of a possessed vampire, the unintentionally hilarious sight of winged skeletons clawing their way out of the mouths of twelve elders, or a thousand pound mass of prosthetics with a face, slabs of milk-white flesh, buzzing high-pitched voice, wriggling arms and all. Even the arrival of Frost's vampire god results in a silly looking balloon inflating with bright red blood (which, upon exploding, splatters everywhere... except on Blade, who's standing so close he lifts his arm to shield his face from a mess that never comes). Even in 1998, some of the visual effects led to snickering in the audience. In 2012, most of the aforementioned effects induce full fledged belly laughs. And yet it's all good fun. While Blade isn't nearly as effective as it was fourteen years ago, flawed as it was at the time, nostalgia gives it a hearty heave-ho, and Snipes, Dorff and Kristofferson drag it the rest of the way. Blade II remains, hands down, the best of the franchise outings, but, all things considered, the blood-spurting, silver-slinging, action-packed film that started it all holds up pretty well. (Based on Comic Book)
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