Blade
New Line Cinema | Release Date: August 21, 1998 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
47
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 25 Critic Reviews
Positive:
10
Mixed:
7
Negative:
8
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
The GuardianPeter Bradshaw
Blade is an entertainingly macabre and excitingly staged action horror, with a propulsive energy and a prototype “bullet time” sequence one year before the Wachowskis made it famous in The Matrix. Read full review
80
Film ThreatAlan Ng
Blade is just good, plain action movie fun. It runs like a smooth roller-coaster and has excellent replay value. Read full review
80
Film.comTom Keogh
A pulsing, wooshing, visceral experience that amounts to great fun and an entirely disposable movie.
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
Big as it is, Blade' is meticulous and subtle, not just in its camera technique but in the way it works its themes and creates a mood. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
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. Read full review
70
SalonCharles Taylor
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. Read full review
70
The A.V. ClubJohn Krewson
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. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
"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. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
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. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
Blade doesn't manage to work up a whole lot of suspense. Read full review
60
Washington PostMichael O'Sullivan
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. Read full review
50
New Times (L.A.)Andy Klein
At best, second-rate pulp, hampered by excessive length, a thematically meandering screenplay, and a general lack of excitement. Read full review
50
USA TodaySusan Wloszczyna
Director Stephen Norrington is more keen on finding new ways to explode the fiends... than developing a credible story. So the movie flits from one gore-laden assault to another with little suspense. Read full review
50
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
For most of its two-hour running time it simply flings a barrage of horrors at the audience, enhanced with the most imaginative science-fiction atmospherics this side of "Dark City," which incidentally was a far more original picture. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesGene Seymour
The noir atmosphere doesn't quite smother the dialogue's cheesy smell. Read full review
40
The New York TimesStephen Holden
Although the opening scene suggests a dark urban satire, Blade quickly turns into a cartoonish futuristic action-adventure yarn in which Blade is the only thing keeping humanity from being exterminated by vampires in a hematological holocaust. Read full review
40
VarietyDennis Harvey
Though slick and diverting in some aspects, increasingly silly pic has trouble meshing disparate elements --- horror, superhero fantasy, straight-up action --- into a workable whole. Read full review
38
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
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]
38
San Francisco ExaminerWalter Addiego
If only it wasn't such bloody nonsense. Read full review
30
The New YorkerSarah Kerr
Adapted from the Marvel Comics series, this movie lacks the mournfulness that sustains a good horror strip; it's trashy, but too deafening and invasive to have the appeal of good pulp. Read full review
30
Washington PostRita Kempley
A vulgar attempt to revamp the undead genre by introducing computer-generated splatter and a casketful of themes from genetic tinkering to conspiracy theories. Read full review
30
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
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. Read full review
25
Entertainment WeeklyStaff (Not Credited)
The action involves lots of second-rate martial-arts choreography (made even less thrilling by the video's pan-and-scan job), while the psychological conflicts are filled with unconvincing angst. Read full review
25
New York Daily NewsDave Kehr
Pure hackwork.
20
L.A. WeeklyPaul Malcolm
Working from a script by David S. Goyer ("Dark City") that lacks any sense of humor or character, Snipes seems unsure if he should vamp it up or play it straight, while Dorff just plain sucks. Read full review
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