Blade (dir. Stephen Norrington, 1998)

Download the Blade screenplay for personal, private use.

“If I can rock with Marvel, that’s great, “ mused OG Blade badass and notorious tax evader Wesley Snipes, in an interview last year. “If I can’t rock with Marvel, all right. You know? I’ll wait by the door. I’ll just put on some nice heels and a nice skirt and something. I’ll just wait by the door… say “hi Kevin” (Feige).”

In the age of a Marvel Cinematic Universe groaning at the seams with squeaky-clean superstars from Lizzo to Harry Styles, it’s worth casting an eye back to an iconic and perhaps singular moment on their path to pop culture domination. The elaborate choreography of crossovers, homoerotic subtext and post-credits cameos is all very well; but the latex-and-mullets blood rave that kicks off 1998’s Blade puts the best-laid plots of head honcho Kevin Feige and his minions to shame.

Soundtracked by the relentless oom-tss oom-tss oom-tss of Crazy Frog-adjacent techno and the luxuriant swish of leather dusters, Blade- a blaxploitation-inspired vampire flick- offers some surprising lessons for the blandest, most profitable fare of the 2020s. The bloated and bloody nature of its social commentary offers a weirdly refreshing contrast to the wistful, formulaic nostalgia of endless reboots and recasts, and problematic actor-prunings. Would you get a curtained hipster clutching a little Asian kid to his armpit while hurling thinly-veiled eugenic commentary across a zebra crossing in, say, Guardians of the Galaxy 2? I think not.

Over two interminable hours, the movie follows Blade (Snipes), a half-human half-vampire who swishes around the Big Apple in full tactical gear dispatching a corrupt vampire cadre led by Mr Curtains himself: a fellow named Frost (Stephen Dorff) intent on raising some big bad in a mystical ritual. This ‘plot’ serves more as a sort of posable taxidermy mount, upon which to tack a series of opulent and biologically improbable accessories. From the first shot of Blade’s boots- crawled onto by a hapless, horny raver wandering into the abbatoir vampire nest- to the obese basement-dweller squeaking frantically for the good guys to leave his hard drive alone, this film wears the selfish, egotistical nature of the superhero genre on its sleeve- to exhausting yet charming effect.

Perhaps the biggest factor in this odd appeal- more shocking than the viscera and martial arts- is the jarring sincerity of everyone onscreen. Snipes powers through dialogue clunkier than his steel-capped boots, poker face intact as he faces off a parade of old school blaxploitation stock villains: rednecks, corrupt cops, and city-slickers may be undead, but remain depressingly timeless. Blade’s dutiful, agonised wincing- as another flannel-wearing fanged hick plunges a knife into, er, bulletproof body armour- carries the constant defiance of common-sense physics into an expression of a deeper frustration. Even more enjoyable are the extras sashaying through the background shots of New York, merrily heedless of a man dressed for a mass-casualty event, and firing a ghost gun at the deli.

Casual shootings; the subway train with enough carriages to fill a five minute fight sequence; the joyous sight of Frost yeeting a tiny Asian girl across the road after an unsuccessful negotiation with the hero; the even more joyous sight of her mannequin-substituted feet landing in the path of the bus. Blade teems with the kind of madcap authenticity that’s been so lacking in recent takes on ‘edgy’ intellectual property. Morbius- the ‘dark’ Marvel character who spawned nothing but a crop of memes in his 2022 film, hinging on the punchline that ‘it’s Morbin’ time’- featured in an ending to Blade, but was ignominiously dropped: perhaps the producers realised that an edgy, pallid white nerd was just too bland of an antihero. As the next generation of reboots, and expensive failures, rolls on screen, perhaps Kevin Feige could think about giving Mr. Snipes that call back after all.