Cast and Crew: David S. Goyer (Script); Avi Arad, Stan Lee (Executive Producers); Kris Kristofferson, Donal Logue, Udo Kier, Traci Lords, Gerald Okamura
What It’s About: Half human, half vampire Blade (Wesley Snipes) hunts down vampires. Vampires pull the string behind the scenes, ensuring they have a steady supply of blood and safety without the need for open attacks that bring attention. A group of young upstarts lead by Deacon Frost (Stephen Dorff) intend to change everything. Can Blade discover their plan and stop them before it is too late?
Why Watch it Today?: The character of Blade made his first appearance on this date in 1973 in Tomb of Dracula #10. Though The Matrix generally gets the credit for integrating CGI, Hong Kong fight choreography and “wire fu” and bringing it to mainstream Hollywood productions, Blade was there a year earlier doing the same thing. X-Men is generally credited with reviving the comic book movie’s fortunes, there was Blade two years before X-Men came out, doubling its mid range budget.
The League of Dead Films 
I’ll absolutely agree that this doesn’t get the credit it deserves where you mentined. I actually like this one the best of the three films (I’ve never seen any episodes of the TV series), although I’ll give Guillermo Del Toro props for the nastier vampires in that first sequel…
I stopped at the first sequel, which I hated except for some of the character design and actors, especially as the 3rd one got such terrible press. I actual forgot about the TV show entirely until yesterday when I saw the opening movie as part of the Blade 4 pack.
The third one isn’t THAT bad – it’s more in line with what Marvel did better a few years later when they added cameos and more characters to keep up with in smarter superhero flicks. That said, the main vampire villain in 3 was annoying and that last big battle and final fight went on waaaaay too long for my tastes. It’s certainly more fun than an Underworld movie, I’d say…
Kinda damning it with faint praise, no? I admit I’ve only seen one of the Underworld movies but the fact Ive never seen another probably says something…
Heh. The FAINTEST praise, to be exact. Some of the casting was interesting in Trinity, such as Parker Posey of all people playing a bad girl type. But I found most of it to be something of a template for the other (and “better”) Marvel fare to come. Of course, between this and those Ghost Rider films, I’d rather get stuck with this any day…
I completely avoided those too, somehow.