Blade (UK)
Vampire Hunter
Certificate: 18
Running Time: 115 mins
Retail Price: £19.99
Release Date:
Content Type: Movie
Synopsis:
A blood-chilling, action-packed thriller about modern day vampires unlike any previously encountered. Wesley Snipes is Blade, the ultimate vampire hunter, an immortal warrior who possesses the superhuman strength and cunning of a vampire, but shares none of their weaknesses.
Able to walk by day and stalk by night, Blade must confront his ultimate adversary, the omnipotent vampire overlord Deacon Frost (Stephen Dorff), who is intent on leading an underground legion of vampires to conquer mankind. Blade must use his awesome powers and razor-sharp weaponry like never before to prevent the annihilation of the entire human race.
Special Features:
Interactive Menus
Scene Access
Trailer
Commentary
Deleted Scenes
Cast and Crew (Stills, Text and Soundbites)
Special Effects
Designing Blade
Behind The Scenes
Video Tracks:
Widescreen Anamorphic 2.35:1
Audio Tracks:
Dolby Digital 5.1 English
Dolby Digital Surround 2.0 English
Subtitle Tracks:
English
Directed By:
Stephen Norrington
Written By:
David S. Goyer
Starring:
Donal Logue
Stephen Dorff
Udo Kier
Kris Kristofferson
Wesley Snipes
Casting By:
Jory Weitz
Rachel Abroms
Soundtrack By:
Mark Isham
Editor:
Paul Rubell
Costume Designer:
Sanja Milkovic Hays
Production Designer:
Kirk M. Petruccelli
Producer:
Wesley Snipes
Andrew J. Horne
Peter Frankfurt
Jon Divens
Robert Engelman
Executive Producer:
Avi Arad
Stan Lee
Lynn Harris
Joseph Calamari
Distributor:
New Line Productions
Your Opinions and Comments
The disc itself has many extra features, although the `deleted scenes` are measly in comparison to other discs, and there is an irritating blue fuzz that inhabits the lower screen during the behind the scenes featurette.
Also, the menu system, which is enjoyable at first, begins to get annoying when you have to wait for the poorly animated blood to follow your selection.
All in all though, a brilliant film with some added bits and bobs that any fan of the film will be interested to see, if only once.
Blade is presented in anamorphic 2.35:1 widescreen, and as you’d expect from a relatively new film the transfer is good. Colours are vibrant and the contrast between night and day is excellent. A lot of the action takes place at night, but the darker scenes never lose detail. There are a few minor problems, but certainly nothing to write home about.
The film features a fantastic soundtrack. This is particularly noticeable in the club scene at the beginning of the film, as Blade terminates vampires with extreme prejudice, all to the tune of the track ‘Confusion’ by New Order. The surrounds are also well used, with gunfire seemingly ricocheting from all angles during the frequent shootouts, and a neat 360-degree surround effect when Blade uses a lethal boomerang weapon.
Blade has a few extra features worthy of mention, the most interesting of which is probably the unadvertised commentary track. There are also behind the scenes featurettes, including the unfinished La Magra ending, deleted scenes, plus the usual bios etc.
I have to admit to being skeptical about this film when I first saw the preview trailer. It looked like another very bad adaptation of a Marvel comic book character. After watching Blade, my opinion has been radically changed. It is a very stylish, entertaining film, with great special effects and an excellent performance from Wesley Snipes. With brilliantly choreographed fight sequences, a banging techno soundtrack, and a dry wit, Blade comes highly recommended as the best Marvel superhero tie-in yet (in my opinion it’s better than the overrated X-Men, but hopefully the upcoming Spiderman with surpass it).
PICTURE: Anamorphic Widescreen 2.35:1.
The transfer available is very good. Colours are extremely vibrant and natural, contrast is solid and the overall sharpness is spot on. This is the kind of outstanding picture we have come to expect from New Line Cinema DVDs. The only flaw I found with the picture was with the opening credits; perhaps its just my player/TV, but the deep red text looks a bit fuzzy and tends to bleed a little. Never mind though, the negative points end there.
SOUND: Dolby Digital 5.1 and Dolby Surround 2.0.
Both tracks here deliver the goods, sounding bassy, rich and extremely dynamic. The opening techno club scene and subsequent shoot out set the movie off to a flying start, with the screams of vampires and whizzing bullets emerging from every speaker. Dialogue is also handled very well, coming across audibly over the opening mayhem in particular-"whats wrong baby?".
Whichever track you choose, you will not be disappointed.
EXTRAS: Considering that my copy is the standard region 2 version and not the Platinum Edition region 1, extras are pretty good, but not great. We have an interesting but brief look behind-the-scenes, a section on the alternative ending, early designs for the blade character and weapons and some cast and crew interviews/biogs. These seemed a lot better at the time of release, but unfortunately the extras on Blade are a bit dated next to nowadays two disc special editions.
OVERALL: Blade is a very good, although slightly flawed, package that is well worth buying/renting just for pure and simple enterainment value. No element of this DVD should disappoint. Enjoy!
Blade: Frost, you`re nothing to me, but another dead vampire
Frost: You`re an idiot, you know that?
Hah, maybe it`s just my poor sense of humor, but that cracks me up every single time. But in any event, with just the odd shoddy one liner, this is great fun and is well worth the purchase.
Blade`s main aim is to rid the world of vampires. He is helped by Whistler, a hippy-like handy man, who supplies Blade with the equipment to fight the vampires.
Deacon Frost (Stephen Dorf) is the main obstacle against Blade`s clearance of Vampires. Frost is a new breed of Vampire, who is sick of hiding from the Human race, and wants to lead a new army of vampires. He disagrees with the Vampire Lords' idea of living harmoniously with the human race, and aims to dominate Earth, and make Vampires the ultimate species.
The opening scene is probably one of the best action intro sequences. It involves a late night party which turns into a vampire bloodbath. One unfortunate reveller gets caught up in the entertainment but for the wrong reasons! Things turn bad and he is grateful to see Blade when he realises that he is the only human at the party.
What ensures is a 5 minute special effects extravaganza with Blade taking on Vampires with the use of a gun, a sword and the good old fashioned fist!
Blade is unusually long for a action movie. It runs for 115 minutes but manages to keep the fast pace action of the first 10 minutes running for the the whole length of the movie.Blade is certainly not like your average Vampire movies (Interview with a Vampire). It is not going to win any awards for acting and story line but what is does well is entertain throughout.
Currently (Sept 02) available from Play.com for £6.49, this is an absolute bargain, and a "must own" DVD. Buy it, and buy it now. In fact if you already own this disc, it's worth buying again, as a backup copy just in case anything happens to the original!!
In the first a trilogy, he must fight against an omnipotent vampire overlord Deacon Frost (who looks like some young goth looking for trouble :)) whose intention is to conquer humankind with his legion of vampires. As states earlier, this is something of a guilty pleasure. The fight scenes are very stylised well choreographed but the downside is that the editing is remininscent of a music video plus the plot is somewhat paper thin.
Video- Presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen, the transfer is suprising very goods despite being released in 1999, 6 years ago! It`s better than some of the transfers I`ve seen today which is filled with edge enhancements, softness and interlacing. The video quality is quite faultless, clear and sharp. As with many DVDs, this suffers from compression artefacts which can be seen in some of the scenes. Overall, a satisfactory transfer.
Sound- Blade has 2 options, DD 5.1 and DD 5.1 music only. The sound quality is a clear as a whistle. Dialogue is crystal clear. The movie is accompanied by a rock soundtrack which fits well into the action sequences. An atmospheric soundtrack. The music only soundtrack speaks for itself.
Extras- Blade is packaged in an amaray keep-case clone (the button which release the DVD will break it) with a booklet with Blade/Snipes on one side and a chapter stop on the other. The first extra is an "audio commentary". In reality, it isn`t what you expect it to be, it is actually a compilation of interviews from Actors Stephen Dorff and Wesley Snipes, Writer David S. Goyer, Cinematographer Theo Van De Sande, Production Designer Kirk M. Petruccelli and Producer Peter Frankfurt. Much of the input from the commentary doesn`t corresponds to what we are watching. It is disappointing. After that, there are 3 small featurettes: "Designing Blade" featurette "Special Effects" documentary and "Behind The Scenes" featurette. All the featurettes clock in around 50 minutes.
Overall- There are movies which I avoid and there are movies which are a must see. This is one movie which I consider a guilty pleasure. I can only summarise this in two words: watch it.