REVIEW #53 The Blade Trilogy (1998-2004)

The Blade Trilogy centres around the half vampire, half human vampire Hunter from the Marvel Comics. It consists of three films; Blade (1998), Blade 2 (2002) and Blade: Trinity (2004). The first film Blade takes on one of his famous adversaries Deacon Frost and in the 2nd instalment he joins forces with vampires to take on the mutated reapers. The final film sees him take on Dracula, whilst teaming up with the Nightstalkers.

CAST & THE ACTING

The casting of Blade himself was spot on, Wesley Snipes is a brilliant Blade and in general his acting is pretty good. The action choreography is good throughout the three films but there are a few silly moments where it just wasn’t pulled off too well. Kris Kristofferson plays Abraham Whistler, mentor to Blade and although I don’t think he particularly looked liked the character from the comics his performance was convincing enough. The third film is the film which contains the biggest names with the likes of Jessica Biel, Ryan Reynolds, Triple H, Natasha Lyonne and Dominic Parcel. There are a lot of familiar faces in all three films and the acting is okay but it was nothing special.

PLOT & THE STORYLINE 

The films did introduce some of Blades biggest enemies but what I felt they were lacking was some context to blade. They explain his origins briefly so we know how he became the half vampire, half human vampire Hunter but I felt like that could have been explored a bit further. I also believe all three were so quick to jump into the huge action sequences that they didn’t flesh out the story enough for the audience to get fully invested into the characters and the story. However the plot was entertaining to watch even if it was just for the action.

CINEMATOGRAPHY & SPECIAL EFFECTS 

This is where the film was actually really good, the prosthetics used for the vampires was great and they created some really freaky designs. The cinematography was great, I really liked the nightclub scenes, the strobe lighting combined with all the blood and action created some really exciting scenes which were great to watch. Considering the film was originally released in 1998 the CGI/special effects isn’t too bad. For example when the vampires are killed and they sort of evaporate, that all looked pretty good considering the resources they had at the time. So I think is the area this film did best in.

OVERALL (7/10)

This is a pretty average score and although the three films are entertaining, the acting and the plot just wasn’t good enough for me to justify a higher score. The third film, often considered the worst, I actually enjoyed I think Ryan Reynolds injection of comedy gave something a little different and made for an interesting character. Whereas previously the characters weren’t that great, you couldn’t really get invested in any of them. I have to appreciate this was one of the films that helped kickstart the hype around Marvel films but I am really excited for the reboot now Disney have taken over Marvel. With extra resources and the talented team of producers behind it I think it will be a great film.

Thanks for reading.

Callan