Blade

This week's film was BLADE.

Blade is an adaptation of a comic-book storyline that follows a vampire-hunter who himself is the offspring of a vampire. This convention happens rarely enough that I felt compelled to see its latest permutation.

Wesley Snipes plays the sternly silent killer know by vampires he hunts as the "Daywalker". A name that attests to his abilities to resist those weaknesses such as daylight and garlic that vampires may fall victim to. He is assisted by Whistler, a grizzled vampire hunting veteran who is Blade's companion and weapons developer. The two follow vampire migrations from city to city and do their best to eradicate the species.

There are some marvelous fight scenes, particularly the hand to hand action. Snipes' unflinching manner is almost reminiscent of Clint Eastwood's spaghetti westerns as the ultimately collected lone warrior. The fountaining over-abundance of blood is almost chilling as the slain vampires go through their final death-throws. And, there is some really good direction.

However, the film suffers from attempting to condense a plot that probably took over a year to publish in serial form into 110 minutes. While the main characters are appreciable (the heroes more than the villains) there are times if you wonder that a particular minor character is presented almost as an obligation to the reader of the comic book (of which I am not) as their screen time is awkward and often irrelevant. You get the feeling that you are missing a chunk of the story, and you probably are in terms of character and sub-plot development because it just wouldn't fit.

There were some interesting twists, and some of the choreography, as I've said, was pretty cool to watch. If you see this film observe the backgrounds. Often times the human population is moving at a different film speed as the less action-oriented scenes are played out. Also, there are some chilling depiction's of how far the vampire infestation has progressed as the background of a car chase may pause on streetcorner to focus on an image of vampire feasting on a prostitute or an intense and unnoticed act of random vandalism by a street gang.

See this movie in the theaters if you REALLY like MORTAL KOMBAT. You may bother to see it second run if you Really like vampire films (but be prepared for moderate predictability). And bother to watch it on pirated cable if you want to see Wesley Snipes kick ass.