I make no claims to having inside information or being a film historian. I want to mention this upfront in case some reads this post and thinks, "this fool is completely wrong." The small purpose of this post is to say a word or two about a film that, if memory serves me correctly, is largely responsible for the comic book movies being made today.
Yesterday I found myself in a very familiar mood. I wanted to watch a movie that was fun, action-packed and fairly violent. I find these movies to be particularly rewarding after I have been taxing my brain a bit. So since the instant viewing of Netflix is not yet what it should be I was forced to venture to Blockbuster and do the nasty. Only I had to settle for a lesser nasty because the one I wanted was not there.
I came home with Blade 3 which I just discovered Spout does not have a link for. This should tell you everything you need to know. I had wanted to rent Blade 2 but apparently their one copy was lost or stolen and the store sees no point in getting another.
All of this is a very long-winded way of getting back to the purpose of this post: the original Blade was a pretty-okay movie. Prior to the first in the series (I believe) the only successful comic book-to-film adaptations had been the Superman and Batman movies. Couple that with the fact that the original blade had an R rating and the importance of this movie starts to become clearer.
I tend to try and avoid all of this talk about the movie industry and money, in large part because this is what everyone else seems to want to talk about. I do want to say that the original Blade stands on it's own though, I don't think that excuses need to be made for it of any kind. Is it high art? Absolutely not. It did not set out to be an Academy Award winner though. The movie has a decent story, fun action sequences and a central character with a bit of depth and grit to him. I recommend this movie to anyone who is looking for a decent action film that delves into the vampire world. At worst it is a wonderful way to relax your head and simply enjoy for a couple of hours.