Action Friday #11: Blade & Blade II

We live, for better and worse, as subjects of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which exists within the multi-verse of the larger, more omnipresent, Disney Mega-verse. For people of a certain age – say, younger than 20 – it’s hard to recall a time when we weren’t deeply ensconced in the MCU; whether it was during its infancy in the early-00’s, or when Iron Man took the world by storm and initiated the age of comic book movies that has dominated theaters ever since.

I get asked why I don’t write about comic book movies; after all, I was an actual comic book nerd, not somebody born into the MCU machine and spit-out a loyal consumer on the other side. I have a LOT of comic books; so many, in fact, that when my wife and I were just getting serious, I had to make a choice: continue dropping $200 a month (at least) on comics, or, you know, be an adult who drinks Old Fashioned-style whiskey and pays bills and shit. To say it was a difficult choice would be under-selling it. But I was the foundational audience for the first comic book movies that would go on to outgrow its initial fanbase and spread, virus-style, to engulf the globe.

There is some history behind the comic book movie craze that many people aren’t privy. Comic book movies had been tried before, and lemme tell ya, they sucked. The Christopher Reeve Superman movies and the first two Tim Burton Batman films were exceptions to the rule that comic books were for kids, and movies based on comic books were for nobody.

Things began to take a turn in the late ’90’s. Most people point to the 2000 film X-Men, directed by Bryan Singer. Those people aren’t exactly wrong. The X-Men franchise, in its early iterations, was a mind-blowing juggernaut, and it gave us the lovely Hugh Jackman; but Blade pre-dated Charles Xavier’s mutants and doesn’t get the respect it deserves.

Blade was released in 1998 during a period of kung-fu rebirth that was happening, in part due to Jackie Chan movies that were making it to U.S. shores, and in part because special effects were in a place where directors could trust a combination of digital and practical effects to make creations that were both fantastical and believable for audiences. Blade follows the adventures of a vampire “day walker” (a hybrid vampire who has a vampire’s strengths and none of their weaknesses, with the glaring exception of a need for blood) who hunts his own kind with a combination of silver and garlic weapons, along with the strength and speed afforded his species.

Made on a $45 million budget, Blade grossed over $131 million worldwide, which cemented it as a commercial success and opened the door for a whole host of other films to be successful in the States. More on those trickle-down effects later. Let’s stick to Blade for now.

The character of Blade is played by the great, the super-great, the amazingly-fucking-great, Wesley Snipes. Snipes was a versatile actor coming into the film, with credits in comedies like White Men Can’t Jump, dramatic roles in New Jack City, and social critiques like Jungle Fever. His early career was marked by a willingness to wear multiple hats within the same role. He could be warm, taciturn, arrogant, insane, and fragile over the run time of a single film, and he could do it effortlessly. He also had a knack for action. His IMdB is littered with films that showcased his martial arts stylings (Snipes holds black belts in a variety of disciplines) and his athletic flair. Snipes also had a way of delivering dialogue that probably looked terrible on the page, and yet in his hands worked in a corny kind of way. Blade took all the elements Snipes excelled at, stirred them in a story written by David S. Goyer (of the Dark Knight trilogy fame) and cooked-up a hard R comic book movie that was thrilling and original.

The movie opens with one of the most iconic scenes in action movie history. The Blood Rave.

Wowza. So much of the late 1990’s and early 2000’s is distilled into that scene. Young people today take it for granted that they can just go to a club and listen to EDM. Hell, you can go to Vegas now and see Steve Aoki right this minute. In 1998, that shit was hard. If I wanted to go to a club and see DJ Baby Ann, or DJ Icey, or whoever, I might be able to find them in a club that people knew about, or I might end up in some fucking dungeon of a place that had one exit and heaven help us if there was a fire. It’s also true that I rarely – maybe twice – left a club covered in a mixture of human and vampire blood. It just wasn’t as common as you’d think.

After the incredible rave scene, and Blade’s whirling dervish introduction, we’re given the plot proper: vampires and humans have been living side-by-side for millennia. The vampires are ruled by a cabal of “pure blood” fops, who talk around teeth too big for their mouth , and as a rule, make sure vampires stay in the shadows. Keeping a low profile allows them to amass wealth and power while also keeping their number at a lower, more manageable size.

If you’re not a pure blood you were “turned,” a term used to insult another vampire. Amongst the turned, Deacon Frost (Stephen Dorff) is a kind of rock star. His belief is that humans are cattle that need to be tended to before slaughtering, not equal partners on the planet.

Blade hunts pure bloods and the turned without discrimination, with the help of his partner, Whistler (Kris Kristofferson- hell yeah!).

All of this sounds ridiculous on the page, I know, but it’s a fun kind of ridiculous. It’s more fun because the actors are taking the material seriously without taking themselves seriously. Dorff was having a moment during the ’90’s and his portrayal of Deacon Frost is playful, seductive, and menacing; playing opposite of Snipes he does a great job of keeping up when he can, and laying back when he can’t. Both of the main leads are chewing the shit out of the scenery, but you get over it because the scenery looks so damn delicious.

There’s a plot about resurrecting an ancient Blood God, or some such, but it’s window dressing so we can get to the next well-choreographed fight scene. There are showdowns, plot twists, and exploding bags of blood everywhere.

If you look beyond the blood you see The Matrix (electronic music, martial arts; shit, the siege on Deacon Frost’s tower is straight-up lifted by the Wachowski’s for the famous lobby shootout in The Matrix), you can see Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (the wire work, the elegance of the martial arts) and waaaaay off in the distance, you can see the MCU.

Though at the time, all anybody could see was a sequel.

Blade II

Four-ish years later a sequel finally arrived. I was personally fired-the-fuck-up. My then girlfriend/future wife? Not so much. She went ’cause she’s a gamer, loves action movies and me (swoon!), and ’cause we’re just movie freaks. Within two minutes of the opening scene, she had me in stitches in the theater:

She leans in close and asks, “Why do they make sparks?”

“Because they’re vampires,” I said, feeling helpful.

“I know….but why do they make sparks?”

Goddamn, I love that woman.

Anyway, the sequel.

Blade II brought back the whole gang from the first movie, with one notable difference at director: Stephen Norrington was out (he did damn fine work on the first movie) and Guillermo del Toro was in. Woo! I was a HUGE fan of GdT’s work – nerd that I am – and we hadn’t even seen his heady apex with films like Pan’s Labyrinth, much less is Best Picture (!) winning Shape of Water. I knew GdT from his early efforts like, Cronos and Mimic, and could tell he had a sense of flair and style. There was a lovely darkness to his filmmaking that worked for me. I figured a vampire movie with a big budget and big stars might be just the thing he needed to kick start a great career. Averil Dickerson: Talent Scout.

The movie’s plot involves Blade teaming up with the vampires he has sworn to kill to fight a greater threat. That greater threat is courtesy of our Director and Savior, Guillermo Del Toro; GdT; Gilly de T; fuck it, I’m working on a better name, but for now, let’s go with GdT and call it good.

The greater threat is a hybrid vampire that has all the strengths of the vampyr, but the only weakness is sunlight. Sound familiar? Enter Blade, ready to get deep into the vampire underworld, while also having a chance to save human lives. GdT’s style really shows through. The design of the hybrid vampires is so very H.P. Lovecraft – an unabashed influence of Guillermo’s – and the mood of the film, while leaning heavily on the first film, definitely steers closer to horror/action than action with horror elements.

The cast is great, with Ron Pearlman as a standout amongst the newcomers, but honestly, Snipes is still the pulse of this film, and without him nothing else works. I mean, let’s be fair here: nothing in this movie is so ground-breaking or earth-shattering that you haven’t seen it somewhere else. What I am saying is that it’s got a collection of elements that make it unique in the field of action, and that unique quality is owed to GdT and Mr. Snipes.

As an example, this scene in the movie requires the protagonist to be fierce, arrogant, and really fucking angry, without seeming silly. Behold:

If you see the movie in its entirety (and I urge you to do so) you’ll see a coherent narrative, character-wise, from scene to scene. Honestly, that’s kind of the best you can ask for from an action flick.

Some of you may be saying, “What about Blade III?” To which I would say, “I’m sorry, what?”

As far as I can tell that movie never happened, so zip it.

Anyway.

My son thought these movies were remarkable. He even went so far as to ask when a new sequel would arrive, and get this, a new Blade series is on its way…starring Mahershala Ali and sitting squarely in the middle of the MCU. Whatever. We’ll see if the guy responsible for Green Book making white people feel good about the 60’s is up to the task of filling Snipes’ shoes.

However it shakes out, Blade and Blade II are badass movies, and the world should view them for the groundbreaking efforts that they are; and the MCU should take a moment to recognize Snipes and Co. for their efforts with regards to building the MCU.

Talk at you later.

Next week: Haywire