Blade II is an awesome action movie. It takes you not only into the world of Blade himself but you get to learn a lot more about the vampire nation itself. Some of their secret are revealed and you get to learn that not all vampires are the “evil” monsters you have come to expect. So in many respects it is a well rounded, educating, very entertaining film, and debatable (very easily debated) the best vampire movie out there.

The film starts out with Blade trying to find his old mentor Whistler. He is an old time vampire hunter that took blade under his wing in what could be an awesome prequel (be an even cooler anime.) Well Blade found out he wasn't dead in the first film and now he is hunting Whistler down to kill him since he is a vampire. Once we get past that point (and a pretty awkward way of bring back Whistler) we find that there is a new type of vampire on the loose. And the vampire nation is recruiting Blade to help them with this menace. Did I mention this menace prays on vampires? So now blade is in a different situation then the first movie and must play a very deadly game of chess with the vampire nation, and this chess game will lead to the death of several key people, some you may become attached to as the story progresses.


The acting done by Wesley Snipes (Blade) is great. The same greatness Arnold Schwarzenegger put into the Terminator role. While it seems like anyone can do it, I know better and have a lot of admiration on how well Wesley controls himself during his dialog scenes. He does have scenes of emotion and scenes of pain that he played out perfectly. I can say he has really become one of the great actors of his generation. I have really liked several of his movies he has put out.

He is also a highly trained martial artist that performs a lot of his own stunts and fight scenes. This is were the controlled fierceness comes into play and I find it beautiful. The fight scenes in the movie are not clone copies of each other. Each battle is unique and the fighting styles of the opponents are unique. And thankfully Blade fights slightly differently in each fight scene. This is one of the highlights of the film and the fight scenes are still fun to watch even after seeing it (when I can't go to sleep) 20 or so times.

Whistler is played by Kris Kristofferson, a minor actor but I have always like him in other roles he has played. Here he is a crotchety old man that has been tortured by the vampires for several years. So needless to say he’s not a happy camper and the only reason he lives is to kill vampires. So putting him in some scenes with vampires makes for some awkward moments, but it also shows how strong his character really is despite having a bum leg.

Ron Perlman (Reinhardt) plays that antagonist in this film. While he won’t win any awards for his performance, he does do a great job in showing the audience his hatred and dislike towards Blade. He also plays the typical stereo type of the blade trilogy vampire quite well. Was his acting good? It was good for this role but he seems type cast and I just do not know his abilities as an actor in anything but action films. But he really does make this particular character come alive in a way that most audience members will just hate him. His emotions are not just carried in his voice and words, it is also carried in his body language. Being able to do all three is a great achievement. Like I said, I think he is type cast and I'm not sure why.

Leonor Varela plays Nyssa, a pure blooded vampire. Actually one of the children of one of the leaders of the vampire nation (not too sure how her father is connected to the group in the first film.) Well she plays both the questioning child, the strong leader, and the love interest of Blade. Thankfully no love scenes are in the movie but you do see their fascination with each other.

Norman Reedus plays Scud, no not stud….it’s scud. What a stupid handle. And a stupid character. He doesn’t annoy me quite at much as I just do not like the character itself. That is what makes this character so important because he is a boy trying to be a man and is going about it the wrong way. So he is frequently the comic element in the films. He does a fine job acting but nothing that inspired me.

There is a beauty to each fight scene, each one is unique in its own way. You do not see the same boring move again and again. Instead each fighter has their own style and the styles blend into a dance when they encounter each other on the battle field.

The writing is good for the most part. I think the directing had has much influence in the performances. The writing was good in that it did not get in the way of the story. It also didn't make two stories like in the third movie (which I thought was a big mistake.) It kept to one story and one problem they all had to engage in. In addition there is a big secret revealed in the end of the movie that ties all of the loose ends together.

One of the problems a co-worker brought up the problem with Whistler getting recovered from becoming a vampire. “No one has recovered from the thirst after one night”. This is a big problem with the lore and sadly was not addressed. They could have addressed by having whistler take regular injections or something but oh well, can't expect perfection I guess.

The flow of the movie is awesome. It starts out fast and ends that same way. The rest of the movie you can call fun fluff that keeps me entertained and informs me of the people involved. A very entertaining action movie from start to finish.

The special effects are a big improvement from the first film. They are cleaner, more brilliant, and I think more realistic (if vampires were real of course). Many of the scenes that obviously had to have special effects were done seamlessly in the movie, to the point I couldn’t tell if it was wires or CG (the commentary points many of these CG effects.) My biggest complaint with the special effects is they had a spot where Blade was 100% digitized, and it just looked bad. I cringe every time I see it. I have the same complaint with spider-man 1 which was done around the same time.

The key players
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Characters as Source Material: Gene Colan, Marv Wolfman
Screenplay: David S. Goyer
Music: Marco Beltrami Music & Danny Saber

Ratings
Yahoo users: B
Yahoo critics: B
Metacritics users: 7.2/10
Metacritics critics: 52
RT community: none listed
Rotten Tomato: none listed
My score: 4.63

MPAA rating: R

Running time: 116 minutes

The last line
This is definitely one of my favorite action movies and the best in the trilogy (which I hope they continue.) It has everything one need. There are underlying human emotional issues and some ethical issues addressed, just not in great length. All around a good movie.

Other vampire movies
Blade III
Underworld: Rise of the Lycans
Blood: The last vampire
Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust

Recommended: Yes