After seeing Blade, the vampire thriller with Wesley "My Talent's in the Mail" Snipes, I found that it had a lot in common with having your arm amputated with no anesthesia. It was extremely gory, it involved an excessive amount of torture for the viewer, and all I could do after it was all over was wonder what I could have done with that six dollars and two hours that had been so brutally ripped away from me. 

Of course, that's just my personal opinion.  

The first ten minutes of Blade pretty much spell out the quality of the rest of the movie. A woman brings a witless dope from off the street to a dance party in a slaughterhouse -- yes, a slaughterhouse. Everyone is soon drenched in blood -- yes, I said blood -- coming out of the sprinklers. Then, surprise of surprises, the dope is surrounded by hungry bloodsuckers with big, Cheshire Cat grins who are breathing like 1-900 number operators. But, wait! Here comes Blade, complete with the tightest black leather pants in the county and sunglasses at night.  

Amazingly enough, it goes downhill after that. 

Okay, sure, the special effects and makeup are impressive. Every time I see a flame-broiled corpse running around a morgue, I have to give credit where credit is due. And Stephen Dorff turns in a wicked, fun performance as the evil vampire who realizes that vampires should be ruling humans (their food), and not be trying to blend in with them. (Imagine all of humanity grazing in the fields with cows, sheep, and pigs; and the guy actually has a point.) And as the comic relief/evil sidekick, I've got to give Donal Logue a hand. (If you've seen the movie, you'll understand just how lame a pun that last sentence really was.) 

But when all is said and done, Wesley Snipes acts like he learned his trade from cereal commercials and old episodes of The Greatest American Hero. And whoever hired Kris Kristoferson to play Blade's hard-edged mentor should be taken out back and beaten with a giant frozen trout. The plot's good in theory -- a vampire Armageddon with its own little vampire god -- but the execution of it leaves something to be desired, like someone in authority who's not on anti-depressants. 

The rest of the minor characters are cardboard cutouts, as is the doctor whom Blade takes under his wing after she's been bitten by a vampire. (Will she change? Will she not? Do I give a damn?) 

As a vampire movie addict, I was hoping that I'd get more out of this one than a lot of horrific special effects and shoot-outs with guns that never run out of ammo. But honestly, how am I supposed to like a movie where the best character is a 700-pound blob who gets roasted like a marshmallow four minutes after he first appears? 

Sheesh...

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