Let’s take a trip back to 1998 and look at the ACTUAL start of the Marvel movie machine.
An injured pregnant woman enters the hospital on a gurney. She is bleeding profusely from the neck and doctors are struggling to save her life and the life of her baby. As the woman’s life slips away, the doctors are able to save the life of the baby. Flash forward an unknown number of years to just about the turn of the 21st century, and a party inexplicably inside an abattoir. A cacophony of loud techno music surrounds a large group of twenty-somethings dancing while lights blur and distract the eyes. An unsuspecting party-goer stands in the middle of the excitement and notices something dripping from a sprinkler head, just before it bursts to life, along with all the others in the room coating the entire party in scarlet red blood.
Vampires are not only real but they are everywhere and are starting to get more brazen in their movements and their actions. The only real hope that humanity has lies in that baby born from the woman attacked by a vampire. He has now grown up and become Blade, the “day-walker”. Blade hunts all vampires taking vengeance on those that killed his mother and cursing him to a life extended as half man, half vampire.
It’s been easily more than a decade, maybe two, since I have seen the original Blade. Other than some questionable special effects the movie holds up beautifully. Blade came out a full ten years before what most consider the start of what would eventually become the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the beginning of the domination of the superhero movie genre. It might be the first actual rated R comic movie and honestly doesn’t get the credit it deserves.
Blade does two things really well; it quickly gets right to the point, and even while remaining mostly serious manages to capture the fun of comic books. The movie wastes little to no time letting the viewer know this movie is going to be bloody and full of action. While the action sequences aren’t exactly Hong Kong action levels, they do a good enough job of conveying the hard-hitting strength of both Blade and his vampiric adversaries. Even with all that action and blood, at several points in the film Wesley Snipes mugs to the camera in a way that seems like it would have been ripped directly from a frame in the layout of the comic.
I’d forgotten more about this film than I remembered, and it was a blast going back and watching it again. I remember watching the original and the first sequel, but I don’t think I ever saw the third film “Blade Trinity”. I hope that the new (obviously more MCU-friendly) version of this franchise will do the original justice. I guess I will have to wait another two years to find out. In the meantime, if you have never seen at least the original film, check it out.
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