Metacritic reviews

Wesley Snipes understands the material from the inside out and makes an effective Blade because he knows that the key ingredient in any interesting superhero is not omnipotence, but vulnerability.

Blade in no way resembles a good movie, but its combination of music-video bombast, goth-rock sensibility, high-tech industrial production design, cold-blooded glossy magazine visuals, high-fashion club culture, horror movies, blaxploitation movies, Hong Kong movies and comic-book nihilism make it diverting trash.

Sure, the story is pretty standard, and the dialogue is laughable or worse. But creative cinematography and non-stop, decently choreographed gratuitous violence make watching this comic-book movie—Blade is a minor, almost-forgotten Marvel comic—entertaining.

"Interview With the Vampire" it's not, but marginally thrilling nonetheless, and besides, any film that features a house party in which the ceiling-mounted fire extinguishers expel freshets of crimson goo in place of H2O gets my vote.

By the time the film is well into its second hour, we begin to wonder whether there's ever going to be a variation on the carnage and mayhem. As it turns out, there isn't.

Blade's stomach-turning special effects, bone-crunching martial arts and cynical humor will more than satisfy any action-film addict's need for a fix of eye-popping escapist adrenaline.

At best, second-rate pulp, hampered by excessive length, a thematically meandering screenplay, and a general lack of excitement.

Often ridiculous, mostly poorly written and, surprisingly poorly acted too. No matter how many flashy scenes the filmmakers shoot, the bad lines just keep dripping down. [21 Aug 1998]

If only it wasn't such bloody nonsense.

The few good lines go to Kristofferson and the ever-amusing Kier, but Snipes's considerable energy is buried under an affectless, Terminator-style demeanor.