Rent Blade II on Amazon Video (paid link)
Written by: Marv Wolfman & Gene Colan (character), David S. Goyer (written by)
Directed by: Guillermo del Toro
Starring: Wesley Snipes, Kris Kristofferson, Ron Perlman, Norman Reedus
Rated: R
Watch the trailer
Plot
Blade forms an uneasy alliance with the vampire council in order to combat the Reapers, who are feeding on vampires.
Verdict
The way to surpass Blade fighting vampires is to have Blade and vampires team up to fight an even scarier version of vampire. This is heavy on action, and it's not much more than a monster movie. This dumps Blade's struggle with being vampire and human, instead focusing on adding CGI to the fights. The villain is lackluster. There are facets to the character that could and should have been explored to develop him better. A hero is only as interesting as the villain they oppose.
Skip it.
Review
The sequel to Blade (1998), where Snipes plays a half vampire-half mortal that eliminates vampires.
In this movie, we're dealing with a monster worse than vampires, Reapers. Blade provides a quick voice over during the credits to summarize the first movie.
Blade is kicking butt and taking out vampires, which makes me wonder how any exist with how many we see him kill just in this sequence. Does he only work a few days out of the year? If he did this every day, vampires would be eliminated in no time. He's looking for his friend Whistler (Kris Kristofferson) who seemed like he died in the first movie, but this brings him back. Blade saves him, though he got a younger sidekick in the meantime, Scud (Norman Reedus). Scud seems like a character designed to appeal to a younger audience.
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| Wesley Snipes plays Blade |
The vampire nation wants to offer Blade a truce. Blade was their worst enemy, but now they've found something worse, Reapers. They're a vampire variant that can affect and turn humans and vampires. Blade agrees to an alliance as it allows him access to the vampire world, places he's never been able to see.
Blade is teamed with the "Bloodpack," vampires that have trained for years to kill Blade. They're a unique looking bunch, and there's just a bit of tension between them and Blade who goads their leader Deiter (Ron Perlman) to attack. He refrains, but Blade does implant a bomb on the back of Deiter's head to keep him and the rest of the Bloodpack in line. Blade and the Bloodpack then go out hunting Reapers.
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| Ron Perlman plays Bloodpack member Dieter Reinhardt |
The Reapers are the souped up vampires. They have fewer weaknesses, so of course the group goes right into the Reaper nest they conveniently find. This certainly makes vampires, by way of Reapers, more scary. The vampires experience losses but Blade continues to rampage. There's a lot of action to this, though much of it is also obviously CGI.
The big twist, if you can call it that, is that the Reapers were an attempt by vampires to create a super strain that instead got out of hand. Despite how fast spreading we were told the Reaper virus is, Blade takes care of them all quite easily. Eventually it's just Blade and the head Reaper Nomak. That's convenient. Blade wins to the surprise of absolutely no one. I just wish in the final fight Nomak had checked his watch and declared, "I guess it's time to end this." I got to that conclusion much earlier than the movie did.
The original and sequel are different movies. I like that Blade wrestles with both sides of who he is in the first one. He's a vigilante chasing monsters. With the sequel, it's more of an action movie with none of the character nuance. It doesn't have the grit of the first one as it's goal is to create scary vampires. I like the first one more, but it's really a factor of whether your prefer grit and story or polish and scares.
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