Blade
II Is a Bloody Good Time! Blade
II Is a Bloody Good Time!For those opposed to film critics using the word "ass" repeatedly in their reviews, you might wanna skip this critique of Blade II, now playing in theaters. Maybe I should just get it all out of my system in one paragraph. I can't help it. There is really no other way to describe this awesome sequel. Blade II kicks ass! It kicks so much ass, I could barely stand it! The vampire ass-kicking that Wesley Snipes dishes out in this movie is so freakin' cool, I almost wept! Show Snipes a vampire ass, and he will kick it. If you like vampire flicks, action movies, gory stories, and sequels that top the original, this is your movie. Get your ass to the theater immediately.
Still with me? Good. I'm OK now. Sorry for all the talk of posteriors being struck by feet, but that was how excited I have been ever since seeing Blade II, directed with great flair and energy by Guillermo Del Toro. This is the movie Resident Evil should have been, and the sequel that Queen of the Damned wanted to be.
Snipes stars as the title character, a half-man/half-vampire fight junkie who has dedicated his life to battling vampires and killing them. He has a soft spot for humanity and an arsenal of silver weapons to defend them. Known as the "Daywalker," Blade has all of the vampires' strengths and none of their weaknesses. He can walk in the sunlight. He has found ways to control his bloodlust. He has superhuman strength and stamina. And he can kick a--
Well, I already established that.
Oh, and he wears some really cool shades and drives a bad-ass car.
OK, I'll admit. The story for Blade II is pretty thin, but that's OK. There is enough. Most importantly, the film has a personality, a style. Modeled after a Greek tragedy, the plot centers on a new master race of vampires that has been genetically engineered to eradicate both humans and vampires. Led by the ultra-vicious Nomak (Luke Goss), these super vampires can feed on other vampires and turn them into something far scarier. Blade is forced to align himself with and become the leader of an elite squad of vampires known as the Bloodpack whose members have trained for two years to fight HIM!
The movie has great fun with Blade's rivalry with Reinhardt (Ron Perlman), a sarcastic brute of a vampire who had been the Bloodpack's leader before Blade was brought into the fold. There are double-crosses and triple-crosses galore. Mostly, there is action. Glorious kung-fu action, executed mostly at high speed. The movie runs about two hours, but it probably has about 100 minutes of fighting in it. It's part Crouching Tiger, part Wrestlemania, part Tekken. If you are in the mood for a stylish, moody tale of the tortured souls who make up the nightbreed, if you want a story about sad and depressed vampires who lament constantly about their lost humanity, you're not gonna get it with Blade II. Every vampire in the movie lives to feed, wear leather, and ... yes, kick A double S.
I was really impressed with del Toro's direction of this movie. He has made a film that is very different from the original, yet isn't so much of a departure that fans of the first film will be turned off. The entire sequel was filmed in Prague, and some of the Czech locations give the film a dark and exotic appeal. And del Toro has made a sequel that is an equal by giving us more of what we loved from the first film-more action, more gore, more vampires-while at the same time taking us deeper into the Vampire Nation. He has also given us some truly eye-popping special effects, like the way the vampires slowly disintegrate when Blade pumps them with silver bullets.
And having Blade team up with vampires is a wicked twist from the plot of the first film. Blade hates vampires, and they hate him. In addition to Reinhardt (who you know Blade will eventually go one on one with in a battle to the death), the rest of the Bloodpack is made up mostly of sketchy bloodsucker types. But you learn enough about them and their different fighting styles to care about who dies and how. Leonor Varela makes an impression as the beautiful purebred vampire Nyssa, who catches Blade's eye. Martial-arts master and Iron Monkey star Donnie Yen is also a pack member, as is Norwegian dancer Marit Velle Keile.
The movie opens with Blade already on a mission to find and save his mentor, the human Whistler (Kris Kristofferson, returning from the first film) who is being held captive by vampires. For those who didn't see the first movie, del Toro gives you a nice introduction in the beginning that ties into this new story beautifully. From there, it's nothin' but vampires versus super vampires the rest of the way.
I sat behind a retired film critic at my recent preview screening of Blade II. He is a kindly old gentleman who still gets movie passes sent to him as a courtesy. We have had many a good conversation about films and filmmaking, in general. But as the body and blood count escalated in Blade II, he kept looking back at me in the dark, his eyes pleading with me for relief. He looked frightened. He looked overwhelmed.
I could only laugh at him. Each time our eyes met, I stared back at him as if to say, "Can't help ya, Old Timer! This movie is kickin' my ass sideways, and I'm loving it!"
Blade II is not your father's vampire flick. Oh, no. It's a new breed altogether.
Blade II is rated R for violence, language, and gore.
[Home]