Tags:
Film: Blade II
Year: 2002
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Writer: David S. Goyer
Starring: Wesley Snipes, Kris Kristofferson and Ron Perlman
Review:
This film begins showing us a blood bank in the Czech Republic. We see what we assume to be a homeless man. He sits down next to Luke Goss. He is coughing and doesn’t look well. He is called back to give blood and he is quizzed about some things on his application. They take him into a room where we learn that he has a rare blood. We then see that those running the place are vampires. It turns out that Goss is not a normal human being, but some kind of a monster. He kills the vampires and drinks their blood.
We then get a voice-over narration to get us up to speed; this is done by the main character played by Wesley Snipes. He tells about himself, his abilities and that he has the thirst of a vampire. We also learn that this film is two years after the previous one and he is looking for Kris Kristofferson. He tried to kill himself, but he was taken by vampires and they are constantly moving him.
The film then jumps right into action as Snipes is after a group of vampires. He kills them all except for Santiago Segura. He is used to lead him to a warehouse. Snipes kills the vampires there and allows Segura to escape, for now. He finds Kristofferson inside a large vat of blood. He opens it and saves him.
They go back to his hideout. We see that Snipes is now working with a new assistant played by Norman Reedus. Snipes puts Kristofferson into a room and given the serum to cure him of being a vampire. It is a larger dose than normal and only has until the morning to return to being a human. The shades in the room open at daybreak.
Kristofferson survives and Snipes allows him back to work with him. That night they are attacked by two vampires. They are revealed to be played by Leonor Varela and Danny John-Jules. They tell Snipes that his presence is required by the vampire nation.
He goes and meets with Thomas Kretschmann, who is the master vampire and leader of the nation. He is accompanied by Karel Roden, who is a human lawyer that handles their affairs. They inform Snipes of the mutated vampires and they need his help to eliminate him. Snipes doesn’t see why he should until it is pointed out that after they have killed all the vampires, they will come after his humans.
Snipes will now work with an elite squad of vampires that have been trained to kill Snipes. Varela is their leader with the rest of the squad played by John-Jules, Ron Perlman, Matt Schulze, Donnie Yen, Marit Velle Kile, Tony Curran and Daz Crawford. It is an uneasy alliance.
Snipes recommends that they go to a vampire safehouse, believing that the mutants will attack there in order to meet their fix on blood. When they get there, Perlman and Schulze find most of the vampires to be half-bloods. They don’t see an issue with killing them all. Soon the mutants show up, led by Goss. They kill Curran and bite Crawford. The vampires realize they are much stronger than they thought, as most of their methods to kill them do not work.
One is captured by Kristofferson and they study it. They find that the heart is protected by bone and UV light seems to be the only thing that will stop them. We also learn that the squad of vampires really don’t want to work with Snipes and will kill him first chance they get. Kretschmann is also carrying a secret that didn’t let anyone in his squad know.
What is the secret about these mutants? How did they crack Snipes’ hideout’s secret so easily? Can the mutants be stopped? Goss is hiding a horrible secret as well, but what could it be?
I want to say that personally, I like this one better than the original. I thought the idea of these mutant vampires to be a really good. I like that they have immunities to a lot of the vampire weaknesses and that they are threat to normal vampires. I like to see films where you have two enemy sides that need to team up in order to survive as well like this film does. Guillermo del Toro is the director of this film and I think he does some really good things when it comes to horror. I felt that the acting was good across the board and the story overall is solid as well. The actions scenes are entertaining and it is good to see that Snipes isn’t super-powerful compared to this threat.
Now the only real issues I personally had with this film was that I felt it was a little bit of a cliché. You have the good and bad guy’s team up only to find out the bad guys have other motives and they are using the good guys. Snipes is also using the bad guys for after this war being over, so I guess that just shows they both have similar things in mind. You also have to have the ‘twist’ of someone backstabbing someone else as well.
With that said, I still feel that this film is better than the original one. I just think that the enemy in this one is better and we get a more satisfying ending in my opinion. The acting is good, the story is as well and the action sequences are solid. I also feel that the mutant vampires are not only a good idea, but are also scarier than normal vampires. The mutants feeding on vampires is even better also. This is a good vampire film that has quite a bit of action in it as well.
My Rating: 8 out of 10