As Blade approaches its quarter-century: the Marvel movie that anticipated the MCU
Stephen Arnell
Broadcast/Streaming Consultant for TV & Film, Writer/Producer (Bob Fosse, Alex Cox, Prince, Sinatra etc), Media/Culture Commentator (BBC Radio, magazines, newspapers), author (novel The Great One published November 2022)
Wesley Snipes trilogy of vampire movies have been underrated over the years since their release (1998, 2002, 2004), but are well worth revisiting,
The debut picture (released in the US on August 21, 1998) opens with a memorable Undead nightclub brawl set to the strains of New Order's remixed Confusion:
The series gave us a proto Deadpool in Ryan Reynolds' wise-cracking Hannibal King and an early look at (gulp) Morbius (played in an end credit cameo by director Stephen Norrington).
The first picture is the best of the three (Stephen Dorff and Donal Logue especially good), but even Trinity has its moments.?
Guillermo del Toro's Blade II is pretty good, but to my mind let down by a crap villain (Luke Goss from Bros) and the distracting presence of Cat (Danny John-Jules) from Red Dwarf.
Star/producer Snipes was effectively sidelined by David S. Goyer for Trinity, where Blade was almost an extra in his own movie, Ryan Reynolds muscling into multiple scenes with his increasingly tiresome shtick.
Parker Posey is fun as baddie Danica Talos, but Kris Kristofferson's Abraham Whistler is wasted.
A shame Gerard Butler's Judas the Impaler (Dracula 2000) wasn't the chief villain in Trinity (or even Cobra Kai's Thomas Ian Griffith's?Valek from the same year's Vampires ) instead of gruff fitness freak Dominic Purcell as 'Drake' aka Dracula.
One the horizon? Mahershala Ali's take on the Daywalker...he appeared in an offscreen cameo at the end of Eternals (2021).
Or not...as the production looks 'troubled':
Blade vs Milo from Morbius