Retrospectacle: Blade II (2002)

*Minor spoilers abound, this movie did come at over ten years ago so I feel okay touching on them. You have been warned.

In my opinion, Vampires have never been as interesting as when they’re squaring off against Wesley Snipes. Being the first Marvel character to hit the big screen in a serious fashion despite being the least known, Blade was something of a revelation for me at the tender age of eleven. It was basically a more violent and less comically timed rendition of an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, so of course I found it more appealing at the time. The first fifteen minutes of the movie, where a human is brought to an underground vampire rave with blood sprinkling from the ceiling, remains one of my favorite opening sequences in any film. Wesley Snipes has never been more suited to a role than as the monosyllabic vampire hunter. While it didn’t win any Academy Awards, the film was quite the hit given its modest budget and paved the way for other Marvel properties to get their respective big screen treatments done in ways that took the source material seriously. It also led to a sequel, simply titled Blade II.

The film picks up shortly after the original, where everyone’s favorite day-walking human-vampire hybrid Blade is approached by vampires who wish to forge an uneasy alliance once a bigger threat hits the streets, a race of mutated vampires called the Reapers that feed on both humans and vampires.

Directed by visionary Guillermo del Toro, the movie carries a stronger visual panache than the original and delivers in spades on the creepy creature effects, where the Reapers open their mouths in flaps to reveal rows of sharp teeth. Ron Perlman makes his almost contractually required appearance in a del Toro film as well, playing a vampire who continually finds himself humiliated by the day walker. Fans of The Walking Dead will also notice Daryl himself as Blade’s lackey Scud. Plus, who doesn’t love the scene where Blade takes down a whole group of baddies to the tune of “Name of the Game” by The Crystal Method?

While the effects are great and the Wesley Snipes is as a good as he was in the original, certain elements don’t stack up as well. To begin with, Whistler should not be in this movie. It seemed as though his situation was permanent by the end and was dead. Bringing him back in this movie ultimately serves no purpose beyond, as certain characters say, slowing Blade down. It cheapens the action done in the original. I love Kris Kristofferson as much as the next guy, but this whole movie could have easily been done with him written out.

Another factor that I didn’t like about the movie is that the villain just doesn’t have much of a presence. Played by Luke Goss (who goes onto being used to greater affect as the villain in del Toro’s Hellboy sequel, a superior effort for the director), starts out as somewhat mindless and becomes embroiled in this dysfunctional family saga that materializes towards the end. It could have been interesting but the movie doesn’t quite stick the landing. The reasons for this being, the fact that none of the other vampire family members are very fleshed out. The daughter could have been a good love interest and a perhaps interesting way of providing the Blade character with an arc besides retreading on the mentor relationship (I heard that the original script did more in this vein but that was cut out besides a scene at the end that hints at romantic longing between the two), but not much is done. Back to the villain, though, part of what made the first movie so entertaining for me was the baddie, Deacon Frost (played by Stephen Dorff in his only good film role). His evil scheme was so devious and didn’t ultimately make sense, considering he wanted to turn the whole world into vampires, thus ultimately robbing them of their food supply. Despite this, he had presence and he was deliciously evil, imbuing the screen with his menace and providing a stark contrast to the moody Blade. The villain here just feels like an embodiment for the chaos of the Reapers.

Overall, the movie is a fun ride that offers plenty of thrills but doesn’t provide anything to challenge the gleefully blood-soaked adventure that was the original Blade.

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