One of the most predominate e-mails that I have been recieving is, "_________ sucks so hard.... God I hope BLADE kicks ass!" The trailer seemed to hit that subconcious geek button of coolness. Why are hopes being held up for a Wesley Snipes action flick? I mean it's not like PASSENGER 57 or U.S. MARSHALLS was even close to being great films. So why are there hopes for this one?
Because of Marvel comics, that magical pulp land of true believers and "nuff saids", we (geeks) have been hoping that the curse of Marvel upon celluloid would be lifted. That properties like Fantastic Four, X-Men, Spider-Man, Dr. Strange, The Avengers, etc etc would be released from their hellish developmental nightmares.
But hey, when it comes to releasing a character like Blade... well that's an easier matter all together. Blade isn't my favorite character, hell he was never in my 'likes' category. He was always future fodder in my mind for Morbius. He just never tickled my interest. Until the first trailer for this film. Damn I've been wanting to see this flick, same with a ton of other geeks. That scene where he lands on the center marble platform and the there is that thuderous "BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM".... pure geek nirvana. I love that stuff man.
Reviews have been running mainly on the positive side, interspersed with some negative ones. And I could have sworn that Hallenbeck told me it was a piece of shit, but upon talking to him tonight, I found out that... no, he kinda liked it. He loved the first 20 minutes but felt the story really didn't do anything.
Well, yeah, but my entire crew wanted no story and just more of Blade whupping vampire ass. My crew really got into it. There was no need for mood descriptions, this was the type of flick where heads explode on screen, that hands explode, that vampires are cut in half, burnt to a crisp, hit by subways, burnt and all around trashed beyond all compare.
And this is a film that knew it was R-rated, so it had no fear of pouring on the red stuff. These Vampires don't have black blood, green blood, purple blood, no blood, etc. No, these blood suckers bleed the stuff too. What style vampires are these? They're the heroin chic vampires.
There's plenty of gratuitous violence for us heavy breathing psychos out there, no, there is no Traci Lords nudity, but the queen of head does a fantastic head job towards the end. I had fun with this film.
Does it have problems? Yeah, it does. The characters are all underdeveloped. Wesley Snipes is a living statue, but who the hell cares, he's just super badass in this flick. He's the best slicing and dicing product I've seen since those late night Ronco commercials. He'll chop up children, women and men too. He takes off arms, hands, legs, torsos, the whole nine yards. He's a mean ol bastard. And maaaaaaaaaaaan, I want Wesley to play the Black Panther soooooo bad it hurts. He would just whup ass as that character, who is one of my faves.
The problems with this film are minor in the great scope of things cause ultimately the audience applauded afterwards and I had a blast, but just for the next set of hoops let me say this.
In Super-hero flicks, stop putting in helpless brainy women as side-kicks that the heroes just have to keep around. Stop trying to give the good guy too many motivations for killing the enemy or disposing of his enemy. For example, it was completely unnecessary in BATMAN to have the Joker responsible for the deaths of Bruce Wayne's parents. We don't need that, why? Because Bruce Wayne wants Joker behind bars because Joker is a homicidal maniac that may deprive some other child of his parents. He'd beat the crap out of him, just for the smilex in hair care products. He's a good guy, his motivation is HE'S THE GOOD GUY. Does a cop bust a guy for stealing a car because the same criminal stole his car... no. He busts the guy because he stole. That's it. The good guy comes from a higher moral ground. Ya want to mess up the lines a bit, make the heroes and the bad guys exist in that great grey world of right and wrong? Fine. Have the difference be theological, a difference of opinions. Bad guys in Superhero films do not have to create the superhero... ok? This isn't necessary. Stop it!
Note to fans. This is a pretty damn fun movie, but the damn studios are watching it like friggin hawks. There is even a rumor that Fox is watching it with an eye on the coffers for X-MEN. If you like the film, if you enjoy it, take some friends and see it again. For one, gore flicks are few and far between. For two, R-rated superhero flicks are non-existent. For three, it's a fun flick.
How does it compare with JOHN CARPENTER'S VAMPIRES? Well, Carpenter's film is a Western, and this is a Superhero Action film. While both dealing with Vampires they are in fact separate genres. J.C.'s Vampires is more horror than Blade. Blade is kinda like ALIENS and DEATH WISH mixed with a bit of DAWN OF THE DEAD gore and TALES FROM THE CRYPT: DEMONKNIGHT insanity.
For some geeks this film will be nirvana, for me it was a blast. For some... well they won't be able to get past the story problems. Me, I was along for the ride, I was there to see Vampires dying badly. I wanted a fun gore film and that's what I got. There are laserdisc moments that genre fans will love. Some of the CG stuff is a bit too CG, but hey all in all if you just get into the world of this flick, you'll love it. Everyone in the crew enjoyed it.
I hope you do too.
