Blade 2

Plot

Two years after the events of the first film, Blade – along with new partner Skud – have been searching for Whistler. When they find him, they are soon asked by Vampire elder Damaskinos to assist them in bringing down a demonic vampire hybrid ‘Nomak’ who is feeding on Vampires, and ‘turning’ them into the almost indestructible creatures just like him; called Reapers.

Blade and co then join Damaskinos’ ‘Blood pack’ and bring Nomak down, before he takes over all the vamps and starts attacking humans.

Direction

Directed by the legendary Guillermo Del Toro, there sadly doesn’t feel like he gets to add too much of his own IP.

I felt that some of the fight sequences were improved on, especially the choreography that must have gone into them. There are some ‘unanswered’ questions I had, such as ‘were the ninja vamps trying to kill Blade in the beginning???

Cast/Characters

Returning cast members are Wesley Snipes as Blade – who was practically born to play the role. He feels a bit more at ease playing the role here this time.

Kris Kristofferson is back too as Whistler, and is still having a blast.

Newcomers are Norman Reedus as Skud, and Ron Perlman as one of the leading members of the Bloodpack

The ‘tertiary’ characters are mostly forgettable, and don’t really serve much more than being a character with a name to die. There are also some wooden performances from some of the cast – which is potentially due to some of the cast being English as a second language.

Screenplay/Setting/Themes

Once again it has a dark horror feel about it. There do seem to be some ‘slight’ changes to the first film. The ‘standard’ vampires seem much easier to kill in this one, and some of their deaths appear much more cinematic (such as the motorcycle vamp in the beginning, and one of the main secondary vamps in the finale.

The villain is a little forgettable, and even in writing this review I’ve had go Google his name and I watched it a few days ago. While more of a physical threat to Blade than the proceeding film’s villain, with more one on one fight sequences the intellectual threat is less.

There is some fun banter between Perlman and both Snipes and Kristofferson, however at other times some of the actors seemed like they hated the dialogue they were saying. Considering there was little to no memorable lines in this one too, the entire screenplay feels like a bit of a letdown.

I also hated the exposition over the beginning credits, it felt almost like a ‘previously on’ when watching a television show, and Skud’s constant calling Blade ‘B’ was a little irritating.

There is a pretty easy to predict 3rd act betrayal

Score/Soundtrack

Overall

A bit of a downgrade from the predecessor, but it is still watchable.

3/5