Director: Stephen Norrington
Cast: Wesley Snipes, Stephen Dorff, Kris Kirstofferson, N’Bushe Wright
Have I Seen it Before: I think so. If I truly have, it largely disappeared from my memory. That can’t be a good sign, right?
Did I Like It: So many people view this as an edgy vanguard of the era of superhero movies that was to follow, and all I’m left with is trying to figure out precisely why. The Daywalker (Snipes) is such an obscure character in the realm of comics, even now. It wasn’t exactly like the mere notion of seeing the character depicted on screen filled us with collective wonder.
The early CGI effects are the stuff of B movies in retrospect so much so to the point that I have a hard time imagining we weren’t watching vampires explode in polygonal eruptions of viscera and thinking that New Line wasn’t particularly interested in the film succeeded.
It’s basically a very average action movie. In fact, I might even venture to say that it is the last of the great, mindless action movies that were king in the 1980s before they inevitably started hiding out exclusively in the direct-to-video marketing.
So from where do all of these positive memories come from? It exists almost solely in Wesley Snipes’ persona. He never broods, even when another movie might be forgiven for defaulting to brooding. If anything, he seems to be of the opinion that he’s in an entirely different movie than the rest of the characters. That sounds like a criticism, but twenty-five years later the crowd with which I saw the film may have lost patience with most of the film over two hours (or at least wish that Guillermo del Toro had directed the entire series), we may have groaned with every attempt at effects (“special” doesn’t really apply), but we all laughed with every quip Snipes had to offer.
Is that enough for an entire movie? Maybe, but just by an inch.