COMICSCAPE PART DEUX: SHARPENING THE BLADE WITH A SPIKE

By: KURT AMACKER
Date: Thursday, June 29, 2006

Amid all the well-deserved attention for SUPERMAN RETURNS, the two-hour pilot of BLADE: THE SERIES premiered on Spike-TV last night. It stands as a significant move for Marvel Entertainment, as the company continues to adapt its comic properties to new media. Having already kicked the door in at the multiplex quite a few times and having recently entered the direct-to-DVD market with a line of animated films, television stood as the next logical step, I suppose. I don't really count MUTANT X, and you shouldn't, either.

As most know, BLADE: THE SERIES continues the story from the film trilogy that concluded with 2005's incredibly mediocre BLADE: TRINITY. The differences should ring obviously enough -- to its detriment, Wesley Snipes has left the franchise -- replaced by Kirk Jones -- along with the characters Hannibal King, Abigail Whistler, and the rest of the Nightstalkers. The show feels more like the first film than anything else, favoring urban grit over the stylized Gothicism of the second and the idiotic humor of the third. The violence is also surprisingly graphic, though less frequent than in the films. Still, it's R-rated television. At the very bloody end of the pre-credit sequence, I looked at my wife with pleasant surprise and said, "Well, they sure aren't f--king around."" Unfortunately though, the script and characters in this first episode only occasionally rise above par-for-the-course television mediocrity. But, it's not all bad.


After brutally dispatching a Russian vampire masquerading as an army officer, Blade tracks a shipment of experimental vampire bodies to Detroit, sent to Marcus Van Scyver (Neil Jackson) -- a wealthy industrialist, architecture patron, and vampire with the House of Chthon. Once in Detroit, Blade and his tech support, Shen (Nelson Lee), set up their operation in an abandoned warehouse before pursuing the bodies and Van Scyver. After cracking a few skulls and staking some suck-heads, Blade meets Krista Starr (Jill Wagner), a U.S. Army veteran recently discharged and returned home. At first unbeknownst to her, Van Scyver murdered her brother Zack, a familiar desperate to join the ranks of the undead. Of course, Krista doesn't believe in vampires. She only knows that Zack died with a peculiar tattoo on his neck that links him to the House of Chthon. And of course, she has to find a reclusive folklorist to tell her that vampires are real and explain the mythology to her. And, she knows that a stoic vampire hunter in a black trench coat wants to kill Marcus Van Scyver just as badly as she does. There's more to it than that, but I don't want to drop a bunch of spoilers in case a few of you decided to wait for a rebroast or TiVo.

Since New Line announced Jones would play Blade, fan boys everywhere have wondered if anyone could replace Snipes in a role he defined. Before I offer my take, let me digress for a moment. I really enjoyed the first two Blade films. Like several of David Goyer's scripts, the first film suffered from shoddy dialogue, but it remained visually and thematically strong. Stephen Norrington nailed the visuals, and the viewer glimpsed a hidden world within the film. And above all, Wesley Snipes defined Blade. If nothing else in the film succeeded, he grabbed the role by the nuts and twisted. The second one built on the vampires' world and, where the first film dragged the audience through the dark alleys of an urban nightmare, the second flourished with Gothic excess via director Guillermo del Toro. Goyer's much-improved script fleshed out Blade's character even more, allowing Snipes to move past his compelling, but mostly one-note, performance in the first film. The third film mostly sucked and I don't want to talk about it. But, none of the films would've succeeded without Snipes. Before X-MEN and SPIDER-MAN really jumpstarted the comic movie glut of the past five years, Snipes showed everyone that a comic superhero -- and more importantly, a Marvel one -- could work onscreen again. What BATMAN AND ROBIN killed and SPAWN couldn't revive, BLADE resurrected.

That said, no actor is irreplaceable. A new actor can bring a fresh spin to a character, and it need not stand as the end of a franchise. Unfortunately, Jones impersonates Snipes a little too well in manner and tone, and not enough in physique and presence. He deadpans his dialogue infrequently and stoically enough that one can't help but remember that Snipes did it better. Rather than expanding on the character and playing to his own strengths, Jones rehashes his predecessor to his own detriment. His swordplay and martial arts skills seem pedestrian at best. But, I admit that's probably a difficult quality to find in most actors otherwise suited for the part. Unless New Line were to audition professional martial artists over experienced actors, it's probably unavoidable. But, unlike BLADE: TRINITY, I never rolled my eyes when Jones spoke during the pilot. He seems good enough, but never much more than that. If BLADE: THE SERIES continues past the first season, I hope he grows in the role and takes it in directions peculiar to his strengths as an actor. It's the only way to keep the character interesting.

Television production values really hurt this episode the most. Outside of Hurricane Katrina coverage, I haven't regularly watched television in a couple of years. But, I watch a lot of movies. Thank God for DVD. But having done that, I can see the glaring difference between the production values and pacing in most movies and television. Television works by keeping the viewer interested enough to keep watching through a commercial break. Rarely does scripted television enter the sub-textual territory that good films explore. At best, television sometimes offers compelling serialized potboilers -- brain candy that entertains, but rarely forces you to think. I'm sure some of you will remind me that there are certainly exceptions, but the crap-to-gold ratio is disproportionately high. Critics have praised the best television shows by stating that they feel like weekly movies. And unfortunately, BLADE: THE SERIES clearly looks and feels made-for-television. The noticeable decline in production values hampers the show's overall feel. Some may not care, but I do.

David Goyer and Geoff Johns penned the lion's share of the script and, while it's still not great, they managed to squeeze in a couple of moments of comic book and art house weirdness. The show's greatest accomplishment, thus far, remains its villain, Marcus Van Scyver. As Krista turns, she hallucinates a vision of Van Scyver at his death by a tribe of American Indian vampires hundreds of years before the story. She also sees her brother as a child, and chases him through a crimson dreamscape as her body changes into one of the undead. After her resurrection, Van Scyver lectures her on life as a vampire -- an eternity of higher perception and aesthetic appreciation beyond humanity's reach. This admittedly interesting approach to Van Scyver doesn't come across nearly as coy as I've made it sound. In fact, his British poise nearly overwhelms any sense of menace or evil. In lesser writers' hands, I might've accused the film of pandering to Spike-TV's target demographic -- like, dude, won't it be great to see Blade kill that whiny artiste fag? But, the script never mocks Van Scyver and presents a villain more interesting than its hero.

The pilot of BLADE: THE SERIES isn't bad, but it's not great, either. Jones tries too hard to replace Snipes, rather than developing the character. The scale and the production values rarely rise above made-for-television quality. However, the show manages to recapture some of the spirit of the first film, albeit on a smaller scale. The script includes some unexpected character development late in the show, along with some visually compelling dream sequences. I'd watch it again, but there's room for improvement. However, there's also potential.