In many ways, "Blade" marks the end of this incredibly long and mediocre summer movie season. Starting way back in May, Hollywood has hit us with a seemingly unending barrage of mindless entertainment (with a few exceptions), including everything from asteroids to zipper incidents. Wesley Snipes, Stephen Dorff and New Line Cinema are hoping that one more actioner won't be too much for American stomachs. Surprisingly, they may be right.
"Blade" is one super-cool, action-filled, hyphen-inducing action movie. From the tense, techno scored opening blast, "Blade" delivers. The movie revolves around a half-human/half-vampire (Snipes) who goes around ruthlessly terminating the vampires who infest our world (who knew?). He's aided by the suitably grizzled Kris Kristofferson, who plays a vamp-hating weaponsmith.
Blade is the scourge of all vampires, feared and reviled. The character is a fusion between the heroes of classic martial-arts movies and the blaxploitation heroes of the 70's. The result is one bad-ass dude. Wielding an arsenal of silver stakes, silver bullet hollowpoint firing guns and a samurai sword with a nasty surprise, Blade is as unstoppable as any self-respecting comic book hero should be.
His nemesis is a rebellious Gen-X-ish vampire, Deacon Frost, played by Stephen Dorff. Frost is not so much frightening as he is cool. Filled with ambition, he refuses to pay attention to the demands of the "pure-bloods" (vamps from birth) and pursues his own plans. "We should be ruling the humans . . . they're our food!" Frost is the merciless villain we like to see--a pure bad guy.
Basically the plot is as follows: the world is packed with vampires and it's Blade's job to kill them. He starts it off by taking on a nightclub full of the undead. Unfortunately, one of his victims revives in the morgue, biting an inordinately good-looking hematologist (luck? I think not). Blade saves her and brings her back to his lair.
One neat thing about this movie is that it doesn't get caught up in the usual superhero trappings. The Blade-mobile is just a sweet 70's Dodge Challenger muscle car. The Blade-lair is just an abandoned warehouse with some gear (they move around a lot). Blade uses some esoteric weapons, but mostly it's just old-fashioned guns and, well, blades. It makes the whole thing more credible, except for the vampires, of course.
Anyway, hematologist Karen joins the crew and lends her apparently considerable expertise (she finds a cure for vampirism in about fifteen minutes) to the macho duo. She also brings in some caring and sharing with lines like "my mama always said a cold heart is a dead heart." Still, she gets to kick some vampire ass too, and so we forgive her cheesiness.
The central aspect of any movie about the supernatural that fascinates me, however, is their interaction with our factual world. "Blade" merely hints at the murky dealings of the vampires, talking of treaties with human politicians and vampire-owned blood banks. Even cooler are the "familiars," human lackeys who wish to be made undead themselves. More exploration of these parts of the story would have made the movie more enjoyable in my opinion, but one shouldn't expect so much from an action movie.
Visually, "Blade" is impressive. Directed by a former special effects supervisor, Stephen Norrington, the movie has several images that stay with you. Particularly fascinating are the sprinklers in the vampire nightclub, the effects of a chemical weapon Karen creates and the final battle between Frost and Blade. Also extremely impressive are the time-lapse sequences that divide day and night in the unnamed city where the action goes down.
Norrington faces some weaknesses in his direction of the action scenes. While extremely kinetic and quick, the action is sometimes incomprehensible and the lighting can be too dark. Still, the point gets across. Wesley Snipes is a pleasure to watch, demonstrating his own prodigious martial arts abilities (Wes is a black belt in the Brazilian art of capoeira). His swordplay is equally convincing.
"Blade" ends the summer with a bang. It provides all us action junkies with one last real summer hit, and for that I am thankful.
