MARVEL REVISITED #3 - 'Blade' (1998)

Okay, this is where Marvel finally got to take off in theaters everywhere! There are three films that led to the modern day superhero flicks that we enjoy today. Yes, in 2000 and 2002, the powder keg exploded with the release of the highly successful “X-Men” from 20th Century Fox and  “Spider-Man” from Sam Raimi and Sony Pictures.

However, in 1998, a film came along that truly showed Hollywood that there was a serious audience for these kinds of films. This was when New Line Cinema released “Blade”, starring Wesley Snipes as Blade, a half-vampire/half-human referred as a “Daywalker”!

Kris Kristofferson stars as Abraham Whistler, Blade’s mentor and fellow vampire hunter. N’Bushe Wright stars as Dr. Karen Jenson, a hemotologist that is bitten by a vampire and saved by Blade. Therefore, she is trying to develop a cure for both her and Blade.

Our villain of the movie is Deacon Frost, played perfectly by Stephen Dorff. He is trying to resurrect an ancient vampire god so that he can have enough power to take over the vampire world and to turn the human world into vampires as well.

Blade is ready to take on the whole vampire nation in 'Blade'!

The movie is directed by Stephen Norrington and written by David S. Goyer. The action is solid all around as Blade slices and dices through various vampires. The opening that takes place at a vampire night club foreshadows the amazing action you’ll receive throughout the movie.

In between, you’ll learn of a dark underworld of monsters that have a tentative truce with humanity until Deacon’s rise to power. The old vampires wish to see the truce continue while Deacon only sees humanity as cattle. On the flip side, Blade hates all vampires and will stop at nothing to see every last one of them burned to ash at the end of his sword or with a silver bullet.

The film is grim but it can also be darkly humorous. There is a running joke with Deacon’s second-in-command, Quinn, played by Donal Logue. He’s a stronger vampire that can survive wounds inflicted by Blade that would kill other vampires.

Therefore, Blade will stab him in one scene, then come back to shoot him in another or slice off another one of Quinn’s appendages. It’s funny seeing Quinn being progressively cut down by Blade and seeing the effects it has on his body before he heals.

Now, this movie is 26 years old, so I will admit that some of the special-effects, particularly those featured in the climactic ending, have aged poorly. Despite this, though, the movie is still a dark, rock solid action film with a great lead character, a reliable villain, and a pretty good story to boot.

The movie had a relatively low budget for these kinds of films as Hollywood was still a little shy with how to proceed with serious superhero films. Thankfully, Norrington and crew did the best they could and they succeed more than they fail. At the end of the day, there is a possible world where we don’t get other Marvel movies had this movie bombed at the box office and on home video.

Thankfully, it was a success and it did show other studios how you could make these films and that the audience would show up. “X-Men” and “Spider-Man” may have been the films where the box office soared and the aforementioned metaphorical superhero powder keg exploded, but “Blade” was the movie that officially lit the fuse and is a bonafide classic.