Blade II

Roger Ebert started his review by saying, ““Blade II” is a really rather brilliant vomitorium of viscera, a comic book with dreams of becoming a textbook for mad surgeons. There are shots here of the insides of vampires that make your average autopsy look like a slow afternoon at Supercuts. The movie has been directed by Guillermo del Toro, whose work is dominated by two obsessions: War between implacable ancient enemies, and sickening things that bite you and aren’t even designed to let go.”

The 2002 sequel is an improvement on the first film, which was pretty good. Once again Wesley Snipes plays the Marvel Comics protagonist who is half-man, half-vampire. He was raised from childhood by Whistler, reprised by Kris Kristofferson, a vampire hunter who kept Blade’s vampirism under control, and trained him to fight the vampires. A long time has passed, Whistler has been kidnapped by vampires and floats unconscious in a storage tank while his blood is harvested, and Blade runs the streets in his solitary war.

Ebert mentioned, “One night acrobatic creatures with glowing red eyes invade Blade’s space and engage in a violent battle that turns out to be entirely gratuitous, because after they remove their masks to reveal themselves as vampires–a ferocious warrior and a foxy babe–they only want to deliver a message: “You have been our worst enemy. But now there is something else on the streets worse than you!” This reminded me of the night in O’Rourke’s when McHugh asked this guy why he carried a gun and the guy said he lived in a dangerous neighborhood and McHugh said it would be safer if he moved.”

The Vampire Nation is under attack by a new colony of vampires named Reapers, who drink the blood of both humans and vampires, and are greedy. Blade, who is both human and vampire, is in the middle of the road. If the Reapers are not destroyed, both species will die. Ebert noted, “If the Reapers are not destroyed, both races will die. This news is conveyed by a vampire leader whose brain can be dimly seen through a light blue translucent plastic shell, more evidence of the design influence of the original iMac.”

Blade and Whistler (now rescued from the tank and revived with a “retro-virus injection”) join the vampires in this fight, which is not without danger, because of course if the Reapers are destroyed, the vampires will turn on them. Ebert pointed out, “There is a story line, however quickly sketched, to support the passages of pure action, including computer-aided fight scenes of astonishing pacing and agility. Snipes once again plays Blade not as a confident superhero, but as a once-confused kid who has been raised to be good at his work and uncertain about his identity.” He is in love with a vampire Nyssa, played by Leonor Varela, but we feel a relationship between a vampire and Blade, called a Daywalker, is sooner or later going to end in arguments over their work schedules.

The Reapers are perfectly made for this movie. They all have what looks like a scar down the center of their chins. Ebert mentioned, “The first time we see one, it belongs to a donor who has turned up at a blood bank in Prague. This is not the kind of blood bank you want to get your next transfusion from. It has a bug zapper hanging from the wall, and an old drunk who says you can even bring in cups of blood from outside and they’ll buy them.”

We find out that it is a cleft chin, not a scar. These Reapers are disgusting. Ebert said, “They have mouths that unfold into tripartite jaws. Remember the claws on the steam shovels in those prize games at the carnival, where you manipulated the wheels and tried to pick up valuable prizes? Now put them on a vampire and make them big and bloody, with fangs and mucus and viscous black saliva. And then imagine a tongue coiled inside with an eating and sucking mechanism on the end of it that looks like the organ evolution forgot–the sort of thing diseased livers have nightmares about.” Later they cut open a Reaper’s chest cavity and Blade and Whistler look inside.

Blade: The heart is surrounded in bone!

Whistler: Good luck getting a stake through it!

Ebert noted, “Del Toro’s early film “Cronos” (1993) was about an ancient golden beetle that sank its claws into the flesh of its victims and injected an immortality serum. His “Mimic” (1997) was about a designer insect, half-mantis, half-termite, that escapes into the subway system and mutates into a very big bug. Characters would stick their hands into dark places and I would slide down in my seat. His “Devil’s Backbone” (2001), set in an orphanage at the time of the Spanish Civil War, is a ghost story, not a horror picture, but does have a body floating in a tank.”

Still when he was in his 30s, Del Toro didn’t depend on computers to get him through a movie and impress those with fancy fight scenes. He brings his scary phobias with him. Ebert ended his review by saying, “You can sense the difference between a movie that’s a technical exercise (“Resident Evil”) and one steamed in the dread cauldrons of the filmmaker’s imagination.”

In my opinion, I feel like “Blade II” is better than the first one. If you like the first one better, I understand. However, I am one of those people who prefers the sequel. When I saw it, I really got into it because the action was more intense, the story was gripping, the actors played their parts perfectly, and all around, Del Toro did an amazing job with this sequel. Check it out if you haven’t seen it yet. I saw this in parts on YouTube way back when you could only see movies split up into 10-minute videos. I have been meaning to go back and rewatch the trilogy, but I haven’t gotten around to it. See this sequel to know what I mean about this one being better than the first, in my opinion.

Next week, we will be sadly ending “Black History Movie Month” with the weakest of the “Blade Trilogy.”