Blade

Mr. Pat

11 minutes ago

6 min read

This whole Kelly Clarkson bird story is absolutely wild. I love Kelly Clarkson; I've been a big fan of hers for a loooong time, but she needs to realize how she's coming off, because the internet doesn't care about nuance. Like, she's worth more than everything in that store, including the building itself combined, by a factor of probably five, and she's going to war because they didn't want to sell her a 15k-money bird that may or may not have been for sale. She was so miffed that she went on X to complain to her 8.9 million followers about a small business. Not only that, she doubled down and is digging in for a fight that may be the silliest thing that's happened in the past week. You may think that's a short time, but in the 24/7 news cycle, and in the silly times we live in, that may as well be a decade. But if it does continue, I hope the two sides keep taking shots at each other for as long as possible. Anyways, let's talk about the 90s classic...

Blade (1998)

I remember watching this movie at the Secor theater when I was a young Mr. Pat, and I loved it. Shortly after it came out, my friend Kyle and I were crossing guards at one of the intersections near the school. We both had long, orange flagpoles where the flags had been ripped off long ago and never replaced. Anyways, while on opposite sides of the street, he and I kept doing the scene where, Blade does some fancy swordwork after wiping out the baddies in the temple. While it didn't happen at that part, we'd end our flurry by yelling, "FROSTTTTTTT!"

What I'm trying to say is, I loved this movie and Wesley Snipes in general; his Simon Phoenix in Demolition Man is up there for greatest bad guy in any movie ever. But I digress; from what I remember, Blade was well received, and I never heard anyone say anything bad about it, and you could argue it proved that comic book movies could be financial successes, ultimately leading to how much comic book movies dominate our pop culture today. Not only did it kick off comic book movies becoming what they are, but it's wild to think that the first big superhero movie had two leads; both of them were African American.

I bring that up because Snipes was actually in talks to star in Black Panther around the same time Blade was being made. That movie would eventually come out decades later, and there's no other way of calling Black Panther anything other than a cultural moment. You would have had to have been living under a rock, on Mars, with your eyes closed and your fingers in your ears to not know about Black Panther. I'm not complaining; I'm just using hyperbole to illustrate how big a deal the movie was. There were groups renting out entire theaters to see it, and it would go on to be the box office's #1 solo superhero movie of all time. I get it why it was big, and why the timing mattered, but come on, where's the love for Blade?! The movie came out 24 years earlier and even spawned its own franchise! Blade is a pretty monumental movie, but it doesn't get the flowers it deserves.

The movie kicks off with a woman taking her b/f to an exclusive club. They're dancing and having a good time when he realizes he's a bit of a third wheel and that everyone there seems to be unhappy with his presence. Suddenly, the overhead sprinklers come on, and our friend realizes the liquid pouring down is blood. Shortly after, he's attacked and realizes he's trapped in a locked room with vampires snarling at him. While crawling away, we get the single greatest character intro ever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHBhKbF2xMA

As he's trying to get away, covered in blood, we see the boots and leg of someone clad in all black, completely clean in a room full of red. Nothing needs to be said; all you need to see is the complete change in the room as all the vampires are practically squishing each other while trying to back away from the figure who hasn't even moved yet. A bunch of undead monsters went from a feeding frenzy to looking like they're about to shit themselves. It's an incredible case of "show, don't tell." This is our first look at the guy, and already we know he's a big freakin' deal because these undead monsters are terrified of him.

What happens next is just full throttle awesome. One of the vampires decides to get a little froggy, and then Blade just lays waste to the entire club with brutal, awesome efficiency. It is incredible. Once he finishes, it's just him and a vampire named Quinn, played by the awesome Donal Logue. Quinn, throughout the entire movie, seems to overestimate his abilities against Blade, and this is far from the last time he catches a beating, and it's always a good time. What's funny is that Quinn was originally a very small role, but everyone thought Logue was so funny that they expanded his role quite a bit and let him ad-lib a bunch of his lines. I can't imagine this movie without Quinn. He's goofy and slapsticky in an otherwise serious movie, but his out-of-place demeanor and supreme confidence somehow fit perfectly. It's a fun dynamic between him and his boss, a vampire named Deacon Frost. Frost wants to literally turn the world into vampires, while Quinn seems like he doesn't care one way or another, as long as he gets to fulfill his hedonistic desires, and outside of his ladies, Quinn seems to be the only person Frost actually likes.

The movie follows Blade and his partner Whistler in their crusade against vampires, Deacon Frost trying to resurrect the Blood God and Karen, a hematologist caught up in the middle after being bitten by Quinn. We get to see a lot of Blade kicking ass, the lore of this universe and a power struggle among the vampire ranks. Frost isn't happy with the arrangement the pure bloods have with the living, saying humans are their food; they should be ruling them, not making back-alley deals with them.

They're all fun characters, and it's a blast following them around. I read a review that ragged on Stephen Dorff's Deacon Frost, but I disagree. He's a lot of fun, and I really enjoy his snarkiness toward pretty much everyone around him. His interactions with the pure blood vampires come off more as an angry teenager demanding respect than a monster bent on world domination.

Another thing that stands out is the look of the movie. Everyone is dressed in all black while Blade is decked out in all black leather with a long, black trench coat. Not only was it trend-setting in that it featured a black superhero lead, but it had that all-black goth aesthetic that The Matrix would make popular a year later. What I'm trying to say, once again, is that Blade doesn't get the credit it deserves; it was way ahead of its time, and if it had come out 20 years later, it wouldn't be so easily brushed aside like it is now.

This movie is awesome. It was awesome in 1998, and it's awesome in 2026. Blade is such a great character, and while the rest of the trilogy lessens in quality as they go on, the stories Patton Oswalt tells about Blade: Trinity are fantastic. Like, Wesley Snipes sounds like a legit crazy person during production, and it makes me like him even more, which I didn't think was possible. It's a shame that tax problems ruined his career, lousy Woodrow Wilson.

Fun fact: one of the most famous and quoted lines in the movie is Blade telling Frost, "Some mother fuckers always trying to ice skate uphill," wasn't in the original script. In the context of the scene, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It came about while discussing the character of Deacon Frost. Snipes had described him as the kind of guy who'd ice-skate uphill. The director and writer liked that line so much that they worked it into the movie. Funny how things work out? Although, my favorite line is when he's chasing Quinn at the hospital, and a cop starts shooting at him. Blade turns to look at them, incredulous, and yells, "Motherfuckers, are y'all out of your minds?" before they take off. It's hilarious but totally fits with the scene.

Wesley Snipes said it best in Deadpool & Wolverine: "There's only one Blade. There's only ever going to be one Blade." I completely agree.

The Rating

Postscript: This is how Roger Ebert opened his review of Blade back in '98.

"At a time when too many movies are built from flat, TV-style visuals of people standing around talking, movies based on comic books represent one of the last best hopes for visionary filmmaking. It’s ironic that the comics, which borrowed their early visual style from movies, should now be returning the favor."

I'm going to leave that there and let you ponder it for a bit.