Wesley Snipes is a top-tier action movie hero when given the right movie to work on, as we saw earlier in his career with Demolition Man and Passenger 57; and this movie brings out the best of him. Undoubtedly inspiring the Matrix to some degree, which came out the year after, with agents instead of vampires dodging bullets, and a team instead of a single man against them. Wesley Snipes has less of a cool ‘hacker’ feel than Keanu Reeves, but more of a convincing martial artist vibe about him, so this movie is very close to the level of the Matrix in terms of acting performance and convincing execution of plot. Wesley Snipes makes a very convincing animalistic/vampiric human being – his moves are sharp and slick, helped very much by great camerawork but also largely thanks to Wesley’s real life martial arts background and his general on-point demeanour.
It’s a very combat oriented theme, with fists and blades and guns from start to finish. Adrenaline is pumping intermittently throughout. Cast wise, we have the odd strong character and a few less strong – this movie could easily benefit from an additional very strong cast member if the plot would allow.
Blade is a rare example of a ‘vampire horror’ that appeals to people who prefer non-gritty, fast-paced, martial-arts-packed action movies that thrill rather than scare. I don’t personally enjoy horror movies, but this one’s just about bearable as it’s more of an action thriller than anything, however, it becomes a bit more sickly when you realise how closely it resembles what really goes on in this world.
Like The Matrix, Blade also has a couple of sequels, which is inevitable considering how strong the original movie was; and like The Matrix, Blade’s sequels are not quite as good as the original but are still worth watching sequentially.