Special effects artist-turned-director, Stephen Norrington, takes a subsidiary character from Marvel Comics’s almost decade-long series, Tomb of Dracula, and fashions a remarkable product: A film wherein a multitude of opportunities in which to create a production of worth are bypassed in favor of making the surefire piece of slough which will only be appreciated in years to come by the heirs to the financiers upon the reading of the latter’s wills.
A Dhampir (human-vampire hybrid) named Blade (Wesley Snipes), while attempting to find the vampire who bit and killed his mother, discovers that a battle is commencing between the House of Erebus, a pure-blood vampire counsel established to fashion peace between the human populace and vampiredom, and those who were “turned” at some point during their human lives into the bloodthirsty undead. The latter faction is led by Deacon Frost (Stephen Dorff), whose goal is complete vampire rule via the raising of La Magre, the Blood God.
One of the few things which Norrington’s film readily exhibits is the immense impact that comic writer Alan Moore has had on the genre. With the premier of Moore’s seminal The Watchmen, comic writers begun to let their inner aesthete flag fly as the medium finally announced that it was unwilling to allow itself to be considered subsidiary literature any longer. As such, characters were permitted to be more than black-and-white clichés as a multitude of real-world grays started to creep in from all corners of modern day’s mythology. Norrington’s titular character is yet another example of this (the charter rendering of the figure isn’t nearly as rotund or complex). However, though screenwriter David Goyer availed himself to what has since become routine opportunity with comic characters, he nevertheless divested himself to making an equally naturalistic story in which to place his antihero. As such, what Blade becomes is a story of epic promise, both literal as well as metaphorical, that unfortunately lapses into mundane, gratuitous action devoid of substantive girth or worth. Yet, the true sin is not the superfluous nature of the film, it’s the fact that Norrington attempts to convince his audience that what it’s consuming is a five-course meal as opposed to the eye-candy which the work unabatedly is.
Granted, the film deviates from the vampiric norm as it casts aside, not all, but some of the typecast lore which surrounds the bloodsucking undead (crosses are ineffective but sunlight, garlic, silver, etc. are still ready deterrents) but does so to no effective ends outside of merely posing as something new. The traditional good-verses-evil motif which, in itself may never become trite, is nevertheless not explored and rarely expounded upon as it becomes mere alibi fodder for battle upon battle sequence. Yes, we have the ever-popular self-depreciating humor, which is all-too-commonplace in horror’s post-Scream era, as “suckheads” are inexorably abound and, cleverly, the situation is further exacerbated by “familiars,” human gimps to their vampire masters, hoping to prove themselves worthy of one day being bitten as the customary motifs of fear of disease (i.e. AIDS when free-flowing blood’s involved), dependency, and sexuality are checked off the requisite list of vampire “Must Haves.” But nothing comes to pass in lieu of a tertiary feud between superhero, villain, and an intermediary, which is criminally imbalanced and poorly represented (especially the latter of the trio) as the accidental introduction to what could have been a very challenging exposé upon ethics and power goes overlooked (despite the inclusion of the double entendre criticism involving the power elite that is the undead underworld who owns much of the city, including the police) and, frankly, juvenilely ignored because such would require more effort on everyone’s behalf to create and execute when sex and violence, not only sells, but is oh so easy to fabricate.
Even Norrington’s lackadaisical presentation of his Christ figure fails to evoke any response by the film’s finale in the wake of a moment’s reprieve from the visual assault of ADD-inducing editing (Note: Music videos must implement frequent cuts in order to progress the storyline due to its limited time element–to extend such a technique to a full two hours is merely sadistic.), making the viewer care less about chasing the potentially intriguing analogy made when genetic mutation and disease become arguably synonymous then how much time in left in the feature. As Charles Taylor of Salon states, “The vampires headed by Blade’s arch enemy Deacon Frost are like bored rich club kids. After Frost feeds, he can’t resist French kissing his girlfriend so blood winds up smeared all over their fashion mag pusses and their fashion-mag designer duds.” Does the director pounce upon his opportunity to critique class in such characterization? Of course not. What of the classic dilemma of father and son having to confront one another (and, no, I’m not spoiling an already transparent subplot) on a potential archetypical level on par with George Lucas’s Star Wars? Nope. Again, with Blade, there’s nothing to see here so you’d be well advised to merely go about your merry way lest you lose 120 minutes of your already fleeting life.
Stephen Norrington’s second feature, Blade, proves that the genre of exploitation is alive and well as he eschews each and every chance that comes his way to fashion anything of substance or interest with his should-have-been engaging narrative involving the aggregation of twelve forms of evil (the panel which comprises the House of Erebus) as pit against a psychologically complex, morally-divided protagonist which the audience anxiously awaits on the edge of its seat for the character’s ultimate decision. Instead we are issued rote characterization and plotlines, replete with scenarios which leave nothing to the imagination, as the work serves as yet another example of a cute-but-not-so-clever feature whose director apparently carries the underlying agenda of becoming the first cinematic vampire as he tries to drain his audience of intellectual integrity or respect for the genre.
But what could you expect from a film which, straight faced, presents a vampire who dons sun block in order to breech sunlight and, equally disconcerting, has the audacity to present in post-Matrix times a black-clad hero opposite an evil coalition where one, and just one, of the malicious brood perpetually appears in all white and, at that, a female?
Trivia tidbit: During its initial stages of development, David Fincher was at one time slated to direct.
-Egregious Gurnow
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
