Blade (1998)
★★★½ — Blade (1998)
Blade arrived in August 1998 at a curious moment for superhero cinema, when the genre was largely considered box office poison following the critical drubbing of Batman & Robin the previous year. New Line Cinema took a modest gamble on the project, adapting a relatively obscure Marvel Comics character who had originally appeared in the 1970s Tomb of Dracula series. Director Stephen Norrington had made his feature debut with the low-budget sci-fi film Death Machine (1994) and would later direct The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003), though Blade remains the high point of his directing career. The film's $45 million budget was a reasonable mid-tier studio investment for the era, and its eventual gross of over $131 million worldwide made it a genuine commercial success, one that is widely credited with reopening Hollywood's appetite for Marvel adaptations and helping pave the way for X-Men and the broader superhero wave that followed.
It's still up there for the best Marvel films made. I watched Blade with my Father when it very first released (as a 9 year old) and I remember absolutely loving it. Kris Kristofferson is great as Whistler and of course Wesley Snipes performance as Blade is iconic, I just feel like this film is missing something that I remember it having. It's oozing in 90s cool and it's crazy to think this film is approaching it's 30th year since release, but I think it shows. The effects are a little dated and it's a little hammy with some of the actors.
Rating: ★★★½ | Year: 1998 | Watched: 2025-04-06
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