The first Blade movie isn't very impressive. As something of a vampire fan myself, I thought that the vampires world of Blade was one of the worst I've seen. If I was immortal, I'd do a lot more with my time than dance in a club while blood rains down on me. Oh, and if everyone who gets bitten even once by a vampire turns into one, the world would soon be swimming in vampires and there'd be hardly any humans left. Just a thought.
The only saving grace of Blade is that Whistler and Frost are pretty cool characters. Neither one gets enough time or attention in the movie though, since Blade takes up so much of the action. They do however have some pretty cool scenes, which make the movie quite a bit cooler.
Westley Snipes doesn't seem to know the difference between playing a tough character and a tough vampire character. Unfortunately, some of the problem may be due to poor writing, and to his credit Westley seems to do a pretty good job delivering his lines. And if some of them don't work, that could conceivably be due to bad writing or directing..
The "love interest" in this movie serves absolutely no purpose. She gives Blade something to snack on toward the end and uh, that's about it. Oh, and what the heck is that blonde vampire chick who hangs out with Frost doing in the movie? Who the heck is she supposed to be?
How come garlic works but crosses don't? Crosses are cool. Garlic is just stinky.
That blood-blowing-up-juice was way over the top. Are we supposed to say "oh cool" when people explode like that, or just toss our cookies?
The end scene itself was pretty weak. I think that original version, where Frost turns into a huge blood-demon, was probably more like what they meant. I meant, the whole time Frost's working his arse off to summon this La Magra, and all he gets for his trouble is the ability to regenerate wounds, move fast (sometimes... this is apparently rather arbitrary) and, uh, red eyes.
Blade 2
How someone can take a mediocre movie like Blade and turn it into an awesome movie like Blade 2 is beyond me, but somehow it happened in Blade 2.
The most obvious and awesome improvement is the totally, totally awesome villain. Everything seems cool about Nomak: the way he talks, moves, fights, thinks, looks... He's based mainly on Nosferatu, like Damascinos and the whole Reaper species, and that's one of the coolest things about this movie. I love the way he can crawl on walls and jump around with totally animal movements. Plus the end rocks too, with basically everyone but Blade and Whistler dead in one way or another. Nomak gets a really cool death, but then again, so do they all.
Blade 2 seems a lot darker and more vampire-ish than the first movie. The plot is a heck of a lot more interesting, and it has some pretty spiffy characters. The fight scenes are pretty inspired, and UV flashbangs are way better than that stupid blood-exploding-juice.
If you're reading this, then you might know that I can watch the first scene over and over again. Basically any scene with Nomak in it is fun to watch, seriously.
Even Blade seems to be cooler in this movie, somehow. And we all know how cool Whistler is... well there's plenty of Whistler going on in this movie. Scud, the new guy, would have been likable if not for his sparring with Whistler. That makes us dislike him right off the bat, which readies us for his betrayal toward the end.
Blade 2 has a better script, better characters, better feel... I barely wanted to watch it in the first place after Blade, but I wasn't disappointed.