Review: Blade
Is it a blessing or a curse to be an actor with movie star charisma? For Denzel Washington, Laurence Fishburne, Samuel L. Jackson, and Morgan Freeman, it's a blessing. Yet for their peer, Wesley Snipes, it seems to be a curse. I mention the quartet above (Ving Rhymes has yet to break through on the big screen the way he has on the small screen with HBO's Don King: Only in America) because they are the leading black actors of their era. Though they have all had their share of misses, they have managed to remain in good stead. As soon as the next generation entrenches itself, these actors will be as venerated as Sidney Poitier. Snipes, however, appears still on the periphery.
Snipes' first feature film was Wildcats, a Goldie Hawn comedy that also marked his first teaming with Woody Harrelson. [Their partnership peaked with the witty White Men Can't Jump, penned and helmed by Bull Durham's Ron Shelton, and tanked with the derivative and joyless Money Train.] With his performances in Spike Lee's Mo' Better Blues (where he outshone Denzel Washington) and Jungle Fever as well as an unforgettable turns in New Jack City and The Waterdance, Snipes established his excellence and versatility. Then a little ditty called Passenger 57 came along. The film's success clinched Snipes' ability to work in any genre. He continued to do films of varying genres but his career seemed defined by his (mostly routine) action films: Demolition Man, Drop Zone, U.S. Marshals, etc. Snipes the actor was on hiatus, surfacing only to cameo in Waiting to Exhale and then in Mike Figgis' uneven One Night Stand. His cameo in Waiting to Exhale was a painful reminder of his ability to be a character and not a caricature. We'll have to wait until Maya Angelou's directorial debut, Down in the Delta, to see that Snipes. For now, there's Blade.
Director Stephen Norrington, who has a number of music videos and one feature film called Death Machine to his name, lends his considerable imagination to this adaptation of the comic book superhero. Production designer Kirk M. Petrucelli deserves kudos as well. His set designs combine industrialist with minimalist, urbane with urban, chic with grunge.
Blade begins stunningly: a darkly redheaded Traci Lords lures a young man inside a hedonistic dance club. The music pounds, the strobe lights whirl, the dancers gyrate in communal frenzy. The look and feel is techno goth. Then the bloodbath. The sprinklers drench the dancers in blood. The young man is surrounded by a sea of red faces with fangs bared. Slipping and sliding on the puddle of blood in his haste to escape, he finds himself at the feet of Blade (Snipes). Blade is the vampire slayer who has the best of both worlds: he's human enough to be a daywalker (one who can be exposed to sunlight without being incinerated) and vampire enough to have their superhuman strength. He proceeds to dispose of all vampires who think they can take him on.
Vampires die inventively in Blade -- they scatter into atomic particles, explode when their blood congeals; the elders have their skeletons crawl out of their skins. Most are easily vanquished; others, like Deacon Frost (Stephen Dorff) and his right hand Quinn (Donal Logue) die hard. Quinn, in particular, is frequently subjected to Blade's dismembering and, at one point, pyromaniacal skills; luckily, vampires can regenerate.
The battle between Blade and Frost, who is out to bring about a vampire apocalypse, reaches thrilling heights during their climactic showdown, a frenetic dance of brandished swords and whiplash editing. Their rivalry, though, isn't simply about good and evil: there are psychological and familial implications in the clashing of souls who are kindred in more ways than one. Both are half-breeds, vampires by bite not birth. One chooses to embrace the underworld, the other opts to destroy it. But both need the other to achieve their goals.
Dorff appears stylishly attired, cadaverously colored, with inky hair and traces of stubble; the look suits him -- it brings out a menace previously untapped. Thankfully, the aura of boyishness that has hampered him in most of his roles (his turn as Candy Darling in I Shot Andy Warhol being a rare exception) is nowhere to be found. This is crucial because a pivotal plot twist would have been glaringly ludicrous had there been even an iota of boyishness.
Snipes does cut a commanding figure and takes the time to map a bit of his character's inner turmoils. He exhibits his martial arts skills with choreographic fluidity, no doubt attributable in part to his origins as a dancer (he appeared in Michael Jackson's Bad video). One hopes that Blade will become a successful franchise: it's about time we have a superhero with ambiguous morals who doesn't go dressing up in some ridiculous masked getup. However, it's a franchise that could be derivative and joyless if not carefully handled. And for Snipes, Blade, in success or in failure, could be the nail in his coffin.
Blade
Directed by: Stephen Norrington
Written by: David S. Goyer
Starring: Wesley Snipes, Stephen Dorff, Kris Kristofferson, N'Bushe Wright, Donal Logue, Udo Kier, Traci Lords, Tim Guinee, Sanaa Lathan
