Blade II (2002)

BLADE 2
RATING: 8/10
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PLOT: Blade is a half human/half vampire being who hunts full-blooded vampires down for a living. When the vampires come to him for help, he's suspicious but goes along anyway. It turns out that there is an even greater breed of vampires out there killing the lesser ones, so they recruit good ol' Blade to rid them of these mofos. Still with me? If so, get ready for lots of blood, action and ass kickings!

CRITIQUE: There aren't many sequels that can actually improve on their originals, but this flick manages to take all of the cool and successful elements from its predecessor, and create an even stronger, balls-to-the-walls rock 'n roll bloody vampire extravaganza. Kudos to director Guillermo Del Toro for establishing one of the greater action/horror flicks of its time. If you want action, you want gore, you want swordfights, fistfights, bloodsuckers, really, really loud rockin' music...this movie is for you! Take a little bit from the comic books, add some martial arts ass kickin', Wesley Snipes playing the ultra-cool "superhero", many, many awesome fight and special effect sequences, and you've got a film that's gonna punch you in the face until you spit out some of your teeth and beg for more. Don't bother seeing this movie if you're just going to bitch about how it's just "violence for the sake of violence" and how boo-hoo, it's so dark and grungy. Dude, it's a friggin' vampire movie based on a comic book...loosen up the a-hole and prepare to have a blast! This movie is very dark. It's also very grungy. It's also very violent, gory and packed with action sequences. I loved it all because the world in which Blade exists, feels like this place. The blackened alleyways filled with beasts chowing down on vampires. The booming discotheques stocked with blood-demons living off their prey. The darkened sewers, secluded, suspenseful and looking like they smell like shit after three and a half days of rest.

This movie is packed with style, jammed with mood and doesn't let up until the final frame. It presents a very basic story (vampires recruit Blade to kill uber-vampires) and gives us just enough juice between action scenes (and boy, are there a lot of action scenes or what?) to satisfy the basic narrative. Granted, no one is going to win "Best Screenplay" honors for this puppy, but this movie ain't about that anyway. I never understood how some critics will lambaste a film for things that it never set out to do in the first place. This movie is obviously trying to give the audience a visual and action feast, and in that, it delivers like nobody's business. There are also a few interesting characters, in Perlman and the hottie who throws a few heart-strings via our main man B (Leonor Varela). The way in which the really, really bad vampires munch down on their victims is also extremely disgusting and memorable. The autopsy scene alone almost had me puking out my own guts. So yeah, if you're queasy at the sight of a spider in your bathroom, watching ultra-vampires chomp through their victims by the boatload, probably ain't for you. Snipes, once again, plays the monosyllabic lead to a tee and continues to impress with his thrilling fighting skills (my favorites were his last one versus Nomak and the one in which he fought those nifty ninja-type vampires, near the beginning of the film-actually, most of the fight scenes were kick arse!) Anyway, the bottom line with this movie is that it's made for a specific type of audience, those who love to watch people kickin' ass, vampires crunching through human beings and lots of dark, icky, smelly, messy, frenetic elements all around.

BLADE 2 delivers the goods, gives us many memorable moments (I loved when Blade bodyslammed one of the baddies near the end or his first scene up against Perlman-classic!) and doesn't let up until you're punching the poor bastard that's stuck in the seat next to you to a bloody pulp. See it with a friend.

Where's JoBlo coming from? Blade (7/10) - Buffy the Vampire Slayer (3/10) - The Crow (9/10) - Dracula 2000 (7/10) - Interview with a Vampire (8/10) - Resident Evil (7/10) - Shadow of the Vampire (6/10) - John Carpenter's Vampires (7/10)

Review Date: March 22, 2002
Director: Guillermo Del Toro
Writer: David S. Goyer
Producers: Michael DeLuca, Wesley Snipes, Peter Frankfurt 
Actors: Wesley Snipes as Blade
Kris Kristofferson as Whistler
Luke Goss as Nomak
Genre: Action/Horror
Year of Release: 2002
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(c) 2002 Berge Garabedian

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X-RT-RatingText: 8/10