Blade achieved the same 180 turn around from me that There's Something About Mary did. That is to say that I went into both movies expecting them to really suck, but left having really enjoyed them. I do hereby coin the phrase "to pull a Mary" to describe this peculiar phenomenon.

Blade pulled a Mary.

Yes, I think I like how that sounds.

Have I started talking about the movie yet?

The movie starts with our hero's mommy being attacked by vampires and then giving birth. This is how Blade becomes the Daywalker, a vampire with a heart of gold who can go outside in the daylight. Or so I have been led to believe. I got to the theater a few minutes late, so I don't really know for sure.

I did, however, get there in time for the ludicrously long opening credit sequence. We meet Traci Lords (who we all remember from such classics films as Traci Takes Tokyo, Two-Timing Traci, and Plughead Rewired: Circuitry Man II) as Racquel, the crotch-grabbing vampire.

It's fortunate for her that Hollywood has decided that wooden stakes don't kill vampires anymore. Huh huh... huh... get it? Wood...

She takes her unsuspecting date to a rave club in the back of a meat locker (always a bad sign on a first date), where the movie proceeds to give us about seventeen minutes of opening credits while dopey date fumbles around the dance floor. It just seemed to go on and on and on. After a while I found myself actually staring into an empty seat three rows in front of me, thinking about changing the oil in my car.

As soon as the credits were finally over, Blade started kicking butt with a vengeance.

Just when things were really beginning to get ugly (and moist) in the Bloodbath Club, the Dayplanner shows up to kick some undead ass. Forget Buffy, you haven't seen this kind of vampire slaying since George Clooney donned a wooden stake jack-hammer in From Dusk Till Dawn.

I thought that the visual effects for the vampire deaths were really well done. We've all seen vampires burst into flames, crumble into dust, or melt like Nazis, so seeing them blow apart like piles of dead leaves was really neat. The effects were done by Flat Earth Productions, makers of fine special effects for Xena: Warrior Princess, and Hercules: The Legendary Pectorals. Hey guys, I loved your work, you've seen my reel, how about giving me a job?

This has got to be the bloodiest movie that I've seen in recent memory. Sure Saving Private Ryan had heads exploding, but did they expand to ten times their normal size and then explode? No sir! Blade makes Starship Troopers look like Smurfs and the Magic Flute.

I also really like the unnecessary usage of high speed film for the driving sequences in the Blademobile. It reminded me of every time the Munsters drove somewhere.

Why is it that vampires are so into techno music? I don't get it, but I like it. I mean, given the opportunity, I think that I'd like to be a vampire. All you do is hang out all night being immortal and going to rave clubs. If you accidentally, say, cut off your leg with a chainsaw, another one grows in. The down side: you have to drink blood and stay inside during the day. Well geez louise! I can't remember the last time that I went outside during the day! According to this movie, vampires can go out during the day, as long as they wear a superficial layer of sunblock over their pasty skin. As for drinking blood... I ate in the art school cafeteria for two years, I'd like you to try to convince me that drinking human blood is worse.

I also thought that it was really great that the vampires were extremely technologically sophisticated. Most of us think of dark wet castles full of scrolls and torches when we think of vampires, but Blade's bloodsuckers had the latest technology at their beck and call. Whenever you are planning to wipe out the human race and replace it with creatures of the night, your Apple Powerbook is there for you.

Ben also had the insight to notice that Blade in his protective padding looks just like a pissed off black Slam Man. Could the evil cyborg punching bag and the Daytripper have been separated at birth?

Go see Blade and judge for yourself.

I liked seeing a kinder, gentler Blade softly wiping the blood off of Whistler's neck with those big clumsy slabs of meat that he calls hands. My heart was warmed in the tender moment where he whips out his gun (in a swishing, Xena-like gesture) so that his mentor can kill himself.

What was up with that naked fat guy in the basement? I suppose that he made sense to the people that read the comics, but for the rest of us I think he could have used a little explanation, no?

I liked how Blade's mom called him Eric instead of Blade. It reminded me of how on South Park everybody calls the fat kid Cartman except for his mom, who calls him Eric. "Mommy can't give you your Cheesy Poofs now Eric, she's busy sucking the blood out of the kitty."