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Dom Robinson reviews


The power of an immortal.
The soul of a human.
The heart of a hero.

Distributed by

Entertainment In Video

Blade is the character portrayed by Wesley Snipes, a half-man half-vampire, born that way after his mother is "turned" in 1967 prior to giving birth, thus giving him the superhuman strength and vampiric tactics, but also gaining some of their weaknesses.

For every good guy there must be a bad guy. Step forward Stephen Dorff as Deacon Frost, self-appointed head of the vampires in the city after he feels Dragonetti (Udo Kier) isn't doing them justice. With right-hand man Quinn (Donal Logue) and his girl Mercury (Arly Jover) by his side, he plans to take over the city, for starters, with his army before conquering the world. When the time is right, he'll then unleash La Magra, the Blood God, unto the world and then it'll be brown-trousers time for humankind.

Before I started to watch this I had my doubts. Just about every Wesley Snipes film I've seen, not including Demolition Man, while being fairly entertaining in the main, have always had something lacking. Snipes has never played a 'character' before, only himself, repeatedly. When I saw the theatrical trailer for this, it looked like the typical mix of wisecracks and action with zero substance. Then I put this DVD on...

Seeing the film in full, rather than bits of a trailer cut together out of sequence, Snipes really gets into character as the vampire hunter. It's no surprise that good will triumph over evil, but it's how it gets there as he dispatches them one after another, although sometimes they come back and often at the most unexpected moment, as the commentary track will testify. Expert direction from Stephen Norrington comes in spades as the quick-cut action draws you in, aided by pump-action shotguns, martial arts swordsplay and the fast, 'stuttering' visuals as the vampires look around or the camera pans across them.

N'Bushe Wright plays Karen, a female mortician who just escapes the result of an encounter with a painful pair of fangs, or has she? To be on the safe side, Blade takes her to his hideout where Whistler (Kris Kristofferson) regularly dishes up the serum to cure Blade of his ills, for as long as it lasts. There's also a cameo from ex-porn star Traci Lords at the start of the film when we reach the present day.

movie pic

Open up and say "Aah!"

A crystal-clear picture is helped by an anamorphic transfer, increasing the resolution for widescreen televisions by 33%, on a dual-layer disc. The average bitrate is a fine 5.58Mb/s, peaking over 8Mb/s a couple of times. The film is presented in its original widescreen ratio of 2.35:1 (not "16:9" as quoted on the back cover, which seems to hint that their DVD releases are anamorphic rather than the actual ratio). Artifacts are nowhere to be seen. Give the person in charge of the picture quality a medal.

The sound quality is first rate. Fighting, gunshots, explosions - all in Dolby Digital 5.1. Why can't they ALL be encoded this way ?

movie pic

Giz a kiss !

Extras :

Chapters and Trailer :

38 chapters covers everything necessary over the 115 minutes of the film, mirroring the Region 1 release. The theatrical trailer is included.

Languages & Subtitles :

Just one language, but the good news is that it is in English and in Dolby Digital 5.1. Subtitles are also included in the same language.

Other extras :

What's missing ? : While there's plenty of extras on this DVD, there's still a few more that could have topped them off.

  • A second commentary track from composer Mark Isham with an isolated music score.
  • Two featurettes: The Origins of Blade and The Blood Tide
  • Pencil to Post
  • House of Erebus - a description of the strange symbols used in La Magra.
  • DVD-Rom features: Original Screenplay, Access to the script, Blade highlights and Web Links.

    Menu :

    The main menu looks very good with effective animation imitating the arrival of La Magra, although I won't spoil what's to come with that. However, the menus do look a little coarse compared to the animated menus of the Region 1 release and I can't understand why they didn't go with those.

    movie pic

    Blade challenged Deacon Frost
    to a Zebedee lookalike contest.

    With Blade 2 already in the works and set for release next year, I can forsee this series running for quite some time if the same crew members are involved. Blade is a great example of a film that delivered so much more than I expected.

    In short, if you have a Region 2-only machine then there are a good selection of extras which justify the asking price, especially when compared to many other Region 2 releases. However, I have to say there is no contest when you compare with the feature-packed American edition.

    Additional: I've since discovered one strange "fault" with this title which only happens when you do a certain thing: Make sure you have subtitles on, then save a bookmark at 59:29, which is approximately halfway through the film, then replay from that bookmark and you will see a caption at the top of the screen stating :

    CAPTIONED BY AUTHORITY OF NCI
    COPYRIGHT 1991
    FALLS CHURCH, VIRGINIA
    How bizarre! 
    FILM	 		: ****½
PICTURE QUALITY 	: *****
SOUND QUALITY		: *****
EXTRAS			: ****
-------------------------------
OVERALL			: ****½

    Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 1999.

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