Blade 2




Released: 2002

MPAA Rating: R

Genre: Vampire

Nuts and Bolts: Blade is back but this time it's not just vampires he has to kill, but rather he has to team up with the enemy in order to stop a new plauge of super vampires known as Reapers.

Summary: As of this writing, Blade 2 is still playing in theaters. As such, this review has tons of spoilers noted throughout. If you don’t want to know the ‘real-deal’, then you might want to hold off on this until you actually see the film.

There is a blood bank in Prague that pays money for donations. Most of Prague’s homeless and degenerate flock there to give away pints of hemoglobin for the sake of a few pennies. But what the general public doesn’t know is that vampires run this particular blood bank! A drifter named Nomak decides that he wants to earn himself a few bucks. The vamps think their slicker than shit when they strap him down to the chair preparing to slurp him down to nothing. But the jokes on them! Nomak is actually a bio-genetically created super vampire known as a Reaper. Unlike typical vampires, a Reaper can only sustain itself by drinking the blood of other vampires. Needless to say, Nomak makes short work of the other vampire physicians. And you can take THAT to the bank!

Flash forward two years. Blade (Wesley Snipes) has learned that his old pal Whistler (Kris Kristofferson) never actually died from the self inflicted gunshot wound in the first movie. Instead, he was turned into a vampire and Blade has been tracking him down ever since. Replacing Whistler is Blade’s newest mechanic extraordinaire, a pot smoking scumbag known as Scud. They finally find Whistler submerged in a cryogenic tube filled with blood. They take him back to their garage where Blade administers the garlic based anti-coagulant serum. Believe it or not, it works and Whistler turns back into a human.

Blade’s compound is then invaded by two ninjas. (Of course.) After an intense fight scene, the two ninjas reveal themselves to be vampires and call for a truce. Nyssa and Asad tell Blade that the leader of the Vampire nation Damaskinos wants to call a truce between all vampire sects and the Daywalker. The reason being; they need Blade’s help in combating the forces of the Reapers. Blade agrees to go to Prague to meet with Damaskinos.

Arriving in the Czech republic, Blade discovers that Damaskinos plans to outfit him with a vampire commando squad known as the Blood Pack. The Blood Pack is led by Reinhardt (Ron Perlman) and consists of Nyssa, Asad, Priest, Verlaine, Chupa, Snowman and Lighthammer. (Christ, these clowns sound like leftovers from Kiss meets the Phantom of the Park don’t they?) Blade and Whistler obviously don’t trust the Blood Pack and believes that they will screw them over first chance they get. Scud outfits our hero with some new gadgets including a retractable blade that shoots garlic serum out in compressed cartridges as well as ultra-light emitters.

Reinhardt tries to challenge Blade, but Blade slaps a remote controlled explosive device on the back of Reinhardt’s head. This keeps his loyalty in check as they hunt for Reapers. They first look for them in a vampire nightclub reminiscent of the club from the opening scene of the first movie. The Reapers appear and our boys motor into action. Lighthammer and Snowman are the first to fall, but Blade and the others take up the slack quite easily. The Blood Pack makes use of small pheromone dispensers, which they use to bait any Reapers that might be in the area.

The battle moves down into the sewers and Verlaine gives her life in order to kill one of the Reapers. Chupa decides he doesn’t like Whistler and the two get into a fight. Whistler is a tough old bird, but even he can’t endure intense punishment from a vampire. Whistler gets him back though by activating one of the pheromone dispensers in Chupa’s vicinity. Before long, the Reapers descend on him and turn him into one of them.
As blood and shit are flying all over the place, Blade sets off a UV grenade that rips through the sewers roasting a bunch of Reapers.

Meanwhile, Whistler and Scud go topside to monitor the rooftops in case any more troublemakers arrive. Whistler takes notice of something and leaves his station. Scud begins to suspect that Whistler might be a traitor. Whistler finds one of the Reapers trapped in a floor grate. He incapacitates the ugly fucker and takes him back to the Blood Pack. Some time later, the Pack examines him and learns that he is a product of genetic tampering. An important detail to Reaper physiology is that a bone hard casing covers their heart making them damn near impossible to stake.

The film moves along and we get some more ass kicking martial arts action going on. Blade begins to warm up to Nyssa and even rescinds some of his prejudice against vampires a bit.

Now we come to the nuts and bolts of what’s going on here. We come to find out that the Reapers were actually created by Damaskinos himself. Damaskinos has two children; Nyssa, who was born a vampire and Nomak who became patient zero for the virus that turned him into a Reaper.

Damaskinos captures Blade and nails him down to a table. He confesses that he only proposed the truce in order to get Blade into Prague. Damas wants to essentially create his own version of a Daywalker; a super vampire that has all of a vampires strengths but none of their weaknesses. Damaskinos leaves Blade in his laboratory to go confront his pissed off son Nomak. Whistler and Scud arrive and free Blade. At this point, Reinhardt has decided that he has had enough of Blade’s shit and wants to fight him. Scud is revealed to be a traitor and tells Blade that the bomb planted in Reinhardt’s head is a dud. He pulls it out and holds the defective implant in his hand. Blade reveals that he always knew that Scud was a vampire familiar and shows that he re-wired the bomb so that it really wasn’t a dud. Scud explodes right out of his boots.

Now its time for Blade and Reinhardt to go at it. A few quick dance strokes later and Blade cleaves Reinnie in two with a swift pass of his sword.  Meanwhile, Whistler destroys all of the laboratory devices used for creating the Reapers.

Nomak now confronts his father. He’s still pretty bitter from being turned into a Reaper and he aims to take it out on his father. With very little flair, Nomak descends upon Damaskinos and drinks him dry. The only matter left to clean up is that pesky little daywalker.

Nomak and Blade square off for the final showdown. Blade is now super-juiced from being immersed in a pool of blood. The two go through an extended hack-and-slash sequence that nearly rips down the entire sanctuary. Needless to say, Blade turns up the winner.

Feeling betrayed by both her father and her brother, Nyssa decides that she no longer wishes to go on living. Blade takes her up to the rooftops so that she can see the sun rise for the very first time in her life. (Remember, some of these guys are BORN vampires.)

Acting/Dialogue: I found the acting much more captivating this time around. Blade has a bit more of a personality and it shines through a lot more in this than it did in the first flick. In the first film, Snipes came off as fairly monotone and unemotional. I guess something about these Reapers just gets his dander up. Whistler gets a lot more screen time in this as well. Despite the cheesy way they resurrected his character, I’m glad they did so, because Kristofferson adds an entire new level of charm to this series. Nomak and Damaskinos both deliver as the principle villains, but they lack a lot of the charisma that Steven Douriff supplied as Deacon Frost. However, even though we don’t have Douriff’s witty barbs, these two still deliver.

Gore: This film is a gore monger’s paradise. The Reapers are really foul looking with a bi-sectional lower jaw that makes them look like a bunch of twat faces. Actually, they remind me a bit of the aliens from Predator sans helmet. There is a lot of eye candy here including exploding vamps, vivisected vamps, drained vamps, eviscerated vamps etc. A particularly amusing scene involved the death of Reinhardt. After his body is split in two down the middle, we can still see his eye blinking at the camera. This film gets an A+ on the gore level.

Guilty Pleasures: I don’t recall seeing any breasts flopping about in this flick but there may have been some during the nightclub sequence. I’ll have to check it again more closely.

Oh yeah…and we also see Whistler naked. Ewwww. If you’re the type that’s into overage washed up country singers exposing their buttocks, well then I guess this film has a lot to offer.

The Good: Blade is back and he’s kicking ass and taking names. No holds barred this time. The fight scenes are even better than they were in the original. Rather than resorting to quick-flash close up fight sequences that every other movie out there seems to hide behind, Blade gives us all our martial arts maneuvers in a crisp and masterful execution. The final fight scene between Nomak and Blade is exceptionally well done as they wonderfully portray the way a throw down would go between two supernatural entities. Everything is very fluid and realistic and it’s easy to follow the choreography. No crappy wirework here. If you want fight scenes with cheesy-ass cable leaping and fake looking back flips then go rent Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, but if you want to see some brilliantly rendered martial arts scenes, then check out Blade 2. To give you an example of just how tough our boy Blade really is…Nomak swings Blade’s body through a heavy concrete column shattering it, and Blade’s glasses don’t even come off! Those must be some sturdy-ass mother-fucking Ray-Bans he’s got on!

I found myself dubious when I first sat down to watch this. After all, it would be pretty tough to top the first movie right? Now although I don’t think Blade 2 is superior to the first one, this flick definitely offers a lot. Blade is more likeable, the villains are more plentiful and the leading lady is a lot cooler.

Whistler really steals the spotlight in a lot of scenes. As mentioned before, he gets a lot more screen time this time around, and Kristofferson takes full advantage of it. He adds just the right blend of cynical humor needed to offset a dramatically intense plot line.

Another great character is that of Nyssa. She doesn’t get too much play but I think she was used well in illustrating the differences (or lack thereof) between a vampire and the Daywalker. It’s a shame that she dies at the end. I would have liked to see her in Blade 3. (And yes screenwriter/director David Goyer has already stated that he’s making a third film. Woo-Hoo!)

If you liked the first Blade, then you owe it yourself to run down and see the sequel. You won’t be disappointed.

The Bad: The only real downside comes from the side of the villains. Like I alluded to earlier, there is NO way you are going to top the character of Deacon Frost. So where do you go from there? Well, this film offers us two villains for the price of one. Damaskinos is the Darth Sidious of this picture but he turns out to be fairly wimpy in the end. As a friend of mine pointed out, it’s the totality of bad judgment when a villain creates a villain that’s an even bigger ass-kicker than he is. As per classical themes, Damaskinos’ sins come back to haunt him. And although his death suitably serves the theme of poetic justice, don’t you think it should have been Blade that kills the bad guy?

So now we come to Nomak. Nomak represents Blade’s final kill. But Nomak isn’t really a villain here. He’s more of a victim who only wants to avenge himself against the forces that created his condition. Hmm. Sounds like the same thing that motivates our hero doesn’t it?  Now, while the fight scene between Blade and Nomak is a thrill-a-minute, I find it somewhat lacking since Nomak isn’t really all that bad a guy. He’s just misunderstood. (And butt-fricking ugly to boot. Christ, this guy didn’t just FALL out of the ugly-tree, but the very branches conspired to forcibly shove him out of it as hard as they could!)

I also wish we could have seen Blade use his anti-coagulant bullets. He tries it once on Nomak, but it doesn’t work. I thought for sure that we would see these things put to use on Reinhardt. It would have been a very cool scene had we gotten the chance to see these bad boys in action. Maybe the cut scenes on the DVD will give us something here.

Great Lines:

“Awww, and just when I was beginning to like the little shit.” --Whistler reacting after the death of Scud.

“These people obviously have no idea who it is they are FUCKING with!” --Blade ready to open a can of whoop-ass on some Reapers.

“I’m not a vampire! I can’t see in the fucking dark you nipple head!” --Whistler sounding off to Reinhardt.

There are a lot of other great lines, but I don’t remember them all right now. Will update later. 

Overall Rating: 8 out of 10 severed heads.
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