Blade (1998)

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This month is “Dark Hero” month at Catching Up On Cinema

All month long, Kyle and Trevor will be reviewing superhero movies of the antihero or dark hero variety!

This week, Trevor and Kyle review Stephen Norrington's, Blade (1998)!

Both popula and financially successful at the time of its release, Stephen Norrington's, Blade (1998), is an early live-action Marvel comics film that at one point faded into obscurity, but has since seen its cultural footprint grow in recent years.

Released just prior to The Matrix (1999), as well as the comic book/superhero movie boom of the 2000's, beginning with 20th Century Fox's, X-Men (2000), Blade stands as the forerunner for many of the trends that would become ubiquitous in Hollywood action cinema in the coming years.

Starring Wesley Snipes, who would represent the character to such a crowd-pleasing degree that subsequent iterations of the titular Blade would be altered to match his appearance and mannerisms, Blade is a high-energy action film that is distinctly of its time, yet remains quite charming for those with a strong tolerance for late-90's aesthetics.

In actuality more of a supernatural action film than a superhero movie, in the long history of Big 2 (DC and Marvel) comic book adaptations, Blade holds the distinction of being both one of the earliest Marvel films (bearing an African American protagonist no less, as well as being a nasty and gritty), as well as being a rare, R-rated Marvel film, produced well before the rise of Marvel Studios' more homogenized branding and aesthetic.

A cultural artifact of late 90's aesthetics and trends, as well as the crown jewel of director Norrington's very short filmography, Blade is an energetic and brutal superhero flick that is well worth revisiting.

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