Review of Blade (1998) by Darren R — 23 Nov 2014

The completely uninspired, overly dark mess of a franchise that was "Blade" began with this installment. It has the same tone as it's sequels, and was a largely unnecessary entry into the Marvel filmography.

The film follows the origins of Blade, a half-vampire who spends his life destroying other vampires in order to defend the human race from their ravenous ways. During one such rampage, he rescues a hospital worker who was revealed to have been bitten by a vampire, and works with her to try and find the cure that he also seeks. Meanwhile, an upstart vampire Frost battles with the establishment to try and lift vampire-kind to power and enslave the human race.

The cast is reasonably established, with names such as Wesley Snipes, Stephen Dorff, Kris Kristofferson and N'Bushe Wright involved. But the cast always seem to just be "phoning in" their performances.

Combining this with uninspiring direction from Stephen Norrington, and you get an absolute turkey of a film, lacking the fun tone of even some of the worst comic book movies (Fantastic Four, Ghost Rider, Batman Forever) that makes it even less watchable than them. Now that the characters rights have reverted to Marvel Studios, and with rumblings of the character joining the MCU, hopefully we'll see a better adaptation of an interesting character soon.

40%.