Summary
- Wesley Snipes delivers career-defining lines in the Blade trilogy, turning cheesy dialogue into memorable superhero movie quotes.
- Blade II showcases fresh ideas by forcing Blade to team up with vampires against a common threat, adding depth to the story.
- In Blade: Trinity, despite the film's shortcomings, Blade's iconic one-liners and cool delivery shine through, adding to the fun.
The
Blade trilogy is full of amazing lines from its titular character, made viable only through Wesley Snipes' career-defining performance. Following the bloody exploits of Eric Brooks, a.k.a. The Daywalker, a half-human, half-vampire hybrid dedicated to killing creatures of the night, the solo series that began with 1998's Blade had a knack for memorable dialogue. Even if the Blade trilogy has its problems, especially the last two films, it never failed to drop some hall-of-fame superhero movie quotes.
If it wasn't for Wesley Snipes' effortlessly cool delivery, much of these cheesy lines wouldn't land as hard as they do. But luckily, the Blade films had a true expert in gloriously silly sci-fi action to pilot its central character, leaving audiences flabbergasted with his ability to make even the most ridiculous of written material sound tough. As the MCU's Blade reboot continues to wallow in production woes, it's great to look back at the first trilogy for some prescient lines of inspiration.
10 "Keep Your Friends Close, Keep Your Enemies Closer" Blade II
Blade II's ideas of keeping things fresh in the relatively same-y tale of vampire murder was to force Blade to work together with some other vampires. In the wake of the threat of the Reaper vampires, a deadly new strain of vampirism that threatens both the human world and the pre-existing vampire establishment, Blade and those he hunts briefly put their differences aside to strike at their shared foe. In the meantime, Blade also re-unites with Whistler, presumed to be dead, curing him of vampirism.
Finding out the lengths to which Blade has been fraternizing with the enemy, Whistler confronts him, particularly in regards to a certain female vampire. After pointing out that Whistler himself had been a vampire not to long ago, Blade responds with an age-old quote. Even though the writers of Blade II certainly didn't come up with the saying, Wesley Snipes manages to make it sound like an action star one-liner.
9 "We Have A Good Arrangement. He Makes The Weapons: I Use ‘Em" Blade
Blade and Whistler's relationship is one of the most fascinating elements present in all three films. Flirting the line with being a father-son dynamic as Blade's clear mentor figure while also being very "business" oriented, the two are clearly close, but hardened their hearts to letting one another in after witnessing years of death. In Blade, Karen takes note of this, remarking that Blade truly does seem to care for the old man, in his own unique way.
Of course, Blade's response downplays their relationship to a simple alignment of goals, stating "We have a good arrangement. He makes the weapons: I use 'em." Whistler's apparent death towards the end of the film clearly demonstrates that Karen was accurate in her assessment, even if Blade won't readily admit just how much Whistler truly means to him. More than just a weaponsmith, Whistler is a confidant, a comrade in the fight against vampires, and the one keeping Blade from becoming just another feral monster.
8 "Because The World Isn’t Nice" Blade: Trinity
Blade: Trinity is typically described as the weakest of the Blade films, and for good reason. Losing the tight action choreography of the first two that showed off Snipes' real martial arts skills and being haunted by an annoying beta version of Ryan Reynold's Deadpool, even the corny R-rated fun seems watered down in the third installment. Still, there are things to appreciate about the sequel, including some hilariously awesome line delivery from Blade himself.
In Blade: Trinity, a little girl observes Blade holding back the beast inside him with the use of a serum that suppresses his "appetite." When she asks why he has to do that, he responds that there's something bad inside him, and the treatment helps it from getting out. The little girl further questions why Blade can't just "be nice," to which Blade responds with a classic one-liner. Seeing the leather-clad Blade armed to the fangs with weaponry interact with a young child is amazing enough, but the drama with which the line is dropped makes it all the better.
7 "You Give Frost A Message From Me: You Tell Him Its Open Season On All Suck-Heads" Blade
Blade introduces its take on the well-known concept of familiars, humans who work with vampires out of desperation, coercion, or promise of eventual eternal life. The idea of vampires getting help from an inside source on humanity is terrifying enough, but Blade is able to turn this advantage into a weakness, trapping one of the familiars, a human named Kreiger. After getting some valuable information out of him, Blade sends Krieger back to Deacon Frost with a potent message.
It's clear that Blade has no sympathy of humans who do the vampires' dirty work for them. Frost ends up killing Krieger shortly after the message is delivered, something Blade surely knew would happen. It's a good thing that the last words he ever heard were a creative new derogatory term for vampires crafted by Blade.
6 "I Was Born Ready, Mother******!" Blade: Trinity
Of all of Blade's villains to make an appearance in the movies, by far the most famous is none other than Dracula himself. Explained to be an ancient being who goes by many names, the Blade: Trinity version of Dracula, known as Drake, is revived by other vampires who end up getting more than they bargained for. Seeing only himself and Blade as worthy successors of vampirism, Drake dons a sleeve of medieval armor and a long sword before facing Blade in a one-on-one duel.
When Drake asks Blade if he's truly ready to fight, Blade responds enthusiastically "I was born ready, Mother******!" From the colorful language to the enthusiasm to fight Dracula himself, this quote is quintessentially Blade. There truly is no stopping Blade once he sets his sights on a vampire, no matter how ancient or powerful.
5 "What’s The Matter? You Miss That? It’s Ok, I Can Do It Again" Blade II
Blade II introduces a bigger ensemble cast compared to the original, which presents some amazing opportunities for strong performances to bounce off one another. In the sequel, Blade sees himself teaming up with the Bloodpack, a team of vampires specifically trained to kill him, banding together against a larger threat. Of course, things are tense from the very first meeting, particularly with Reinhardt, a vampire played by Ron Perlman with a particular bone to pick with Blade.
Sensing that they'll never be able to work together unless Blade establishes his dominance right away, the Dhampir goads Reinhardt into attacking him, tauntingly holding a silver stake to his own chest and daring the vampire to push it in. When he doesn't take the bait, Blade goes even further, slapping Reinhardt after questioning his reflexes. The resulting scuffle ends with Blade planting a bomb in the back of Reinhardt's head, guaranteeing his safety with the threat of its detonation.
4 "The World You Live In Is Just A Sugar-Coated Topping! There Is Another World Beneath It: The Real World. And If You Wanna Survive It, You Better Learn To PULL THE TRIGGER!" Blade
The world of Blade is a very grim one. When innocent bystander Karen gets pulled into the sickening world of vampires, Blade does everything he can to save her. But he can't seem to adequately prepare her for the harsh realities of vampire hunting, which sometimes includes taking the lives of other humans, even gunning them down in broad daylight. After her obvious moral objections to killing a police officer allows the familiar Kreig to escape, Blade confronts Karen to give her a dose of reality.
This scene perfectly demonstrates just how seriously Blade takes vampire hunting. It's not enough to simply track down and kill the vampires in their lairs, but their influence on human society has to be rooted out, as well. Luckily, Karen takes these lessons to heart, and is able to survive some truly grueling ordeals by the end of the film.
3 "Kill You? Mother******, I’ll Kill You! I’ll Just Enjoy It Better" Blade: Trinity
With his new troupe of vampire-hunting buddies, Blade goes on to uncover a gruesome blood-sucking conspiracy in Blade: Trinity. One of the best moments in the film is when Blade and the gunslinging daughter of his old mentor, Abigail Whistler, corner a couple of vampires in order to parse more information. One of the conspirators protests, saying that he can't reveal any information lest his compatriots murder him.
Blade finds this defense almost funny, claiming to be just as murderous towards vampires, if not more so, than they are to each other. Snipes' delivery gives the sense that Blade is disgusted with such a cowardly attempt at weaseling out of talking, and as always, takes the time to establish himself as the true apex predator in the vampire food chain.
2 "Mother******, Are You Out Of Your Damn Mind?!" Blade
In the course of his bloody war on vampires, Blade frequently ends up butting heads with human law enforcement, who simply see him as a gun-wielding mass murderer without the context of the secret world living beneath their own. While this is a central element of the story of Blade: Trinity, it also comes up briefly in the first film. When Blade returns to a hospital to finish off a vampire survivor from the excellent blood rave opening sequence, some startled cops end up shooting him in the commotion.
Luckily, their bullets bounce harmlessly off of Blade's body armor, leaving Blade unphased, but annoyed. Wesley Snipes' delivery of the line Blade uses to send them running in fear in the opposite direction feels so genuine, it's almost as if he broke character while saying it. It's interesting to imagine the calm and collected Blade "persona" being very much a performance in-universe, which is capable of being broken with enough frustration.
1 "Some Mother******s Are Always Trying To Ice Skate Uphill" Blade
Of all the lines in the Blade trilogy, none can compare to Wesley Snipes confounding yet incredible final words to the first film's villain, Deacon Frost. Commenting on the futility of Frost's actions, Blade ruminates on the situation with this strange metaphor before going on to execute one of the most needlessly flashy but incredible finishing moves. Throwing a needle of unstable coagulant that explodes on contact with vampire blood into the air, Blade sends it flying into Frost's forehead with a single swift kick.
A line like "Some mother*****s are always trying to ice skate uphill" is simply too cool to have been meticulously crafted in a writer's room. Snipes himself came up with the line when discussing Deacon's character, and writer David S. Goyer and director Stephen Norrington liked it so much that they included it in the film. Judging by Snipes' recent comments on 2025's Blade, it's hard not believe that the actor and martial artist isn't simply
Blade himself.
Upcoming Marvel Movies Release Date Deadpool & Wolverine July 26, 2024 Captain America: Brave New World February 14, 2025 Thunderbolts* May 2, 2025 The Fantastic Four July 25, 2025 Blade November 7, 2025 Avengers: The Kang Dynasty May 1, 2026 Avengers: Secret Wars May 7, 2027
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