Blade 2

So I finally saw Blade 2. I had waited so long that I nearly forgot that I still wanted to see it, but it was still at the theatres, so I got off my ass and went, finally.

It was a fun movie, the action nicely took the visual concepts which The Matrix established, and took them a bit further. It stepped up the pacing from the first Blade movie. It was definitely more music-video-esque than director Guillermo del Toro's earlier movie Mimic, the Mira Sorvino horror movie. Wesley Snipes got to show off his martial arts, choreographed by Jeff Ward' who started his stunt career on Berry Gordy's The Last Dragon (Sho'Nuff!) and choreographed the martial arts alongside Wesley on the first Blade movie, and Hong Kong action star Donnie Yen, star of Iron Monkey. Donnie also appeared on-screen as a member of the Bloodpack named Snowman, also known as The Asian Guy.

If you haven't seen the movie (or the first Blade), allow me to encapsulate. Blade's pregnant mother was bitten and infected with the "vampire virus" which killed her and made her a vampire. But this meant that Blade was born with the strength and speed and blood hunger of a vamp, without their fatal weaknesses: silver, garlic, and sunlight (UV light, actually). He was raised by Whistler (Kris Kristofferson) who made Blade's gadgets, but Whistler was bitten in an attack and spared himself the misery of vampiredom by shooting himself. In Blade 2, Blade has spent the last 2 years looking for Whistler, who, infected with vampirism, has survived his own suicide. Upon bringing him home and curing him, Blade is approached by a couple of vamps from Prague who tell of a new threat: a new, mutated strain of vampires, called reapers, who even feed on vamps, must feed frequently, and turn all their prey into reapers. Their numbers are growing explosively, and they are immune to many standard vamp weaknesses. Blade joins an elite vamp strikeforce, called the Bloodpack, who were originally trained to hunt Blade. And the fun begins in earnest.

Now, I'm no nit-picker. I'm not one of those guys who picks a movie apart. My friends Andrew and Tasha are much better at it than I am. I usually take what I see at face value, and if there is a minor glitch in continuity, I can usually think of the explanation for it, that they didn't have time in the movie to explain. But sometimes a plot hole opens up and it just leaves you saying, "Huh? What the hell is that about?" and it is most annoying when it takes you out of the movie.

But enough about me, let's talk about the movie. And let's start with the most important bit: French-Chilean Leonor Varela as Nyssa was one hot vampire chica. Though every so-often there would be a shot of the back of her head, with that funky metal hair-bun-cover-thing, and the light would hit it just right so that you'd think for an instant that it was a bald spot. Her death scene at the end, though... I get that it was supposed to be all romantic and heart-rending, she wants to see the sun for, probably, the first time ever, and gets incinerated while gazing lovingly into Wesley's face. But the thing is, she's getting incinerated by the sun. Hey, I saw the first Blade, and they killed a vamp using a sunburn, and that guy was one screaming motherfucker. Why? Because incineration hurts. I don't care how much you love Wesley Snipes. She ain't no Buddhist monk.

I was satisfied with the handling of Whistler's return after shooting himself in Blade. Sure, you know it's just a device to bring him back to the franchise, and you don't just want him to appear as a glowing, blue apparition. "Use the blade, Blade..." But, you know, I could believe this shit. A dude could shoot himself and come back as a vampire, because he did brace himself. And he knew something about the levels of gravitivity and polarity, and shit. But then the vampire detox, one injection and you're cured overnight? I dunno, that's seems like more of a stretch. At least with Near Dark they did a full blood transfusion. There must have been some major advances in vampire innoculations in the last couple of years. Plus it's been 2 years since Whistler vamped. Now I know, I know, Blade says they've been keeping him in "stasis" but what the hell was that supposed to mean? He was in a big tank of fluid when Blade found him. He wasn't frozen. Suspended animation hasn't been invented yet. Whistler even says that they took him out to beat his ass over and over. And then he obviously had time to heal, because he wasn't all beaten-looking when Blade rescued him, he was just wet. Was that supposed to be a bacta tank he was floating in? Did they really need to put his old ass in leather pants? And back in the first movie when Whistler shot himself with Blade's gun, didn't that thing fire silver bullets or some such anti-vamp ammo? Are they suggesting that Whistler was vamp enough to survive a bullet in the head, but not vamp enough to be affected by silver? But ultimately it is more important that they did bring back Whistler than whether or not they did it poorly. The movie wouldn't have been the same without him.

The first vampire fight was okay. Obviously they didn't want to blow their load, so they could make each successive fight scene even more intense. It reminded me of Buffy, a lot of punching and kicking, punctuated by a quick jab with the stake. They did a nice job changing the vampire death graphics. Though I was left wondering if all the new sparks they added were intended to imply that Blade was using some improved weapon, like silver laced with garlic and EDTA, all mixed together. But as the movie went on, it seemed that the new vamp death was just the same old vamp death, but they didn't want it to look the same as Buffy. But let's face it, Blade is basically Buffy. He has his Scooby gang, Whistler and Scud (Whistler and Karen Jenson, in the first movie) and he runs around kung-fu killing vamps by the dozen. Or maybe he's Angel. Yeah, long, black coat, and they're both vamps...

And speaking of Dr. Karen Jenson (N'Bushe Wright), where is she? Of course, she was the love interest from the first movie. And they never bring the love interest back in the sequel. Was Vicki Vale in Batman Returns? Did any of Bond's women make it to a second movie? No. But they made a lot of references to the first Blade movie, showing flashbacks even including Blade's mother. And yet, no mention of Karen Jenson. Are we to assume that she succeeded in making a better serum to quell Blade's bloodlust? Did she develop that new vamp detox that cured Whistler, and does that mean that Blade can stop killing vamps now and just shoot them with the detox to cure them? I thought that there would at least be a line about Karen, but no. I expected one not because she was the love interest in the first movie, but because the fact that Blade's hunger had not been cured was a plotline which was dangled deliberately at the end of the first movie, and Blade specifically told her to continue her anti-vamp research. So? How did it go? Along the same lines, this movie amped up the action at the sacrifice of its characters. Blade is half-vampire/half-human but while the first movie gave us a feel for that human half, showing us Blade's struggle with his Vamp side as well as his love for Whistler, Blade 2 leaves out his human heart. There are brief references to the scenes in the first movie which established the character's humanity, but Blade 2 has no such scenes of its own. The attraction between Blade and Nyssa is unconvincing, beyond the immediate physical attraction the heterosexual male and lesbian members of the audience feel when we first see Leonor. David S. Goyer wrote both movies, and I wonder if he was instructed to cut down on the non-action scenes. Goyer also wrote Dark City and The Crow 2, which leads me to wonder whether he writes the long, black, leather coat into his screenplays, of if it's just a coincidence.

Blade's glaive returns in this movie. He hardly used it at all in the first movie, but it was a cool visual. Here he uses a new one, and apparently (if you look at the fantasy knife and sword catalogs) he has a new one too. The glaive is the double-bladed throwing weapon he uses in the beginning of the first movie, like a boomerang. His new glaive is three-bladed. In Blade's first fight in Blade 2, he uses it to chase down a couple of fleeing vamps on motorcycles. The glaive in the first movie was kind of improbable, but cool. It acted like a boomerang, arcing around the circular room and returning to Blade's hand. It strains disbelief a bit, but I could believe this shit. A dude throw his glaive and cut off two vampires' heads and have it come right back to him, because he did brace himself. And he knew something about the levels of gravitivity and polarity, and shit. But in Blade 2 his glaives fly out and seem to chase down the fleeing vamps, like little attack helicopters or something. Now, flying in an arc I can buy. Flying in a straight line? No problem. But flying down the street, then take a right at the next alley, and keep chasing the guy? Bullshit, Mr. Han-man. By the way, I have no idea why they call Blade's switchblade shuriken a "glaive." A glaive is an actual weapon that looks like a big, pointy knife on the end of a long pole. It has nothing to do with serrated frisbees.

I liked that the vamps started hiding their glyphs, in response to Blade's attacks. Of course, there's always a vamp discoteque. I understand why vamps might enjoy French kissing with razor blades in their mouths, but why was that one vamp snorting instant Kool-Aid? I've seen cocaine (in movies) and it should not be pink. I like the Bloodpack, the fact that they had been seriously training to specifically target Blade. I assume that Blade has been in the game for a while before the first movie, but that his elimination of Deacon Frost was the biggest splash he had made on the Vampire Nation (we are a part of the... sing!), and that put him on the radar. The Bloodpack had cool armor, cool outfits, nice, distinct personalities (though I would have liked to have seen Donnie Yen kick more ass, like he got to in Highlander: Endgame). Ron Perlman did a nice job reprising his role from Alien: Resurrection ("I'm not a mechanic, Mr. Ironsides. Mostly I just hurt people.") But here's a question: This Bloodpack had all this gear, all this training, state-of-the-art weapons, and yet they couldn't get their hands on some sunblock? Obviously it worked just fine for Deacon Frost, why wouldn't it work for the Bloodpack? Now don't get me wrong, I am not sorry to see the sunblock thing eliminated. I thought it was stupid and unnecessary in Blade. But the first movie did establish it in the Blade continuity, so it seems strange for them not to use it when they need it.

The sequence introducing Nyssa and Asad (?) was cool. The CGI characters flipping around the ceiling were a little weightless, but they still looked cool. Their goggles and ninja suits looked cool, though why the hell did they need goggles? Vampires can see in the dark; Whistler even remarked to that effect later in the movie. Plus, it's way hard to fight in goggles, so I guess she must have been a really good fighter. I supposed if she had taken them off she would have kicked Blade's ass with a quickness, sort of like switching from left-hand to right-hand swordfighting in Princess Bride. When they were used in the fight sequences, the CGI characters were a little cartoony, but at least they weren't on the screen for long. The pacing of the fight was cool, allowing for vampiric speed. Altering film speed to account for the heightened perceptions and abilities of the protagonist is something of a new trend. Though it has been seen before, it has really caught on since The Matrix did it, and we even see it on Angel and on Witchblade, on TV. Of course, kung-fu movies have been speeding up the action by a few frames per second for years, but here at least there is a reason for it: vampires move fast. By the end of the scene we discover that the purpose of Nyssa and Asad's visit was not to attack Blade but to recruit him. So why did they circumvent the security system and sneak in? Why didn't they just knock on the door, or call him? And don't give me that Blade-don't-have-no-phone shit: If Morpheus could mail Neo a phone, then Nyssa could have done the same for Blade. But no, they did it for the gratuitous fight scene. Even the "test his skills" excuse falls flat, since they know how good Blade is, or else they would never have formed the Bloodpack in the first place. It was a cool-looking scene. But pointless. But cool. But pointless. Hell, if you don't care if your movie makes sense, why don't you just toss out the script and throw in a few CGI dinosaurs, just for fun? Kids love dinosaurs!

Who the hell thought up those reaper vamps? That was some nasty, alien-looking shit. That's a compliment. Those guys had jaws like the Predator. It was a cool scene, though, when they had captured the reaper and held him down on the floor, and Blade stepped up with his gun. You think he's gonna shoot the reaper, but he shoots the ceiling instead, and the sunlight fries the reaper. Good times... good times. Who trained that Bloodpack anyway? Okay, I understand going after Blade with big guns and stuff, but by the time they figure out that reapers don't mind bullets, and only fear UV light, it's time to get new weapons! That lamp Blade used to fry Pearl in the first movie, everybody should have had two of those. Clipping a tiny-ass flashlight onto your big ol' assault rifle does not make it a good reaper weapon. What the hell is the point of going into the sewers with guns and bullets and shit, when the only thing that works is your tiny-ass flashlight clipped to your ineffective rifle that gets knocked out of your hand in the first second because it's so unwieldy? And if the other vamps are afraid of the UV, then put them in opaque clothing! It's not that complicated. If I had to hit those sewers you would have seen me lit up like a Vegas casino in UV lights, with sunblock and one of those full-body ninja suits for protection.

And you know that big UV bomb they had? I didn't even mind that it was exploding UV down the tunnels and around the corners and stuff. I figure, what the hell, maybe it's bright enough to reflect off the slimy walls or something. But when Nyssa and Ron Perlman escape the UV blast by diving into the water, that was just plain ridiculous. Hello, UV is light, it shines through water, too. We even had a camera angle under the water, as Nyssa dove for cover, and we could clearly see the light of the explosion through the water. There should have been two more ashy vampire corpses in that sewer, that's all I'm saying.

By the time Scud reveals his betrayal, his fate has been written on the wall for some time. He is either too annoying to be a good guy, which means betrayal and of course death, or he is too annoying to live. Either way, the annoying guy dies. But since Scud is working for the same vamps who are helping Blade (and vice versa), it's not that dramatic a betrayal. I liked the fact that they played with Whistler's character, trying to make the audience question whether he could really be trusted, but those of us who have actually viewed a Hollywood movie before pretty much know that Whistler is Blade's boy.

This movie looks really good, it has style galore, and Guillermo del Toro effectively replaces Stephen Norrington's Eurotrash glitz with his own gritty grime. The high-tech skyscrapers are out, decrepit, scaffolded cathedrals are in. Blade wears his black leather combat gear, this time with bulky, new buckles. And of course, he wears his shades at night, indoors, even when fighting. It's not as bad as wearing goggles in a fight, but I swear Blade takes a few hard hits to the head, and his sunglasses are never the worse for wear. At least in Bruce Lee's original Game of Death (from Bruce Lee: A Warrior's Journey, not the 1978 version) Kareem wore sunglasses for a reason. Blade has a reason, too, but "looking cool" just isn't a very good reason.

The fact that the vampire overlord, Damaskinos, is responsible for the creation of the reapers also comes as no surprise. And really, should he be condemned? He's just trying to uplift his race. So he experimented on his own son. I'm sure he thought he was doing the right thing, and that the experiment would work. What if it had? Damaskinos would have made his son into the first among day walkers. Everyone would have thought Damaskinos was a wonderful guy, for having bestowed this gift upon his son. But no, the experiment goes a little wrong as often happens in science, and suddenly he's the bad guy. How fair is that? It's not like they could have done animal experimentation. There is no evidence that animals can be vampirized, so that means you can't inject a little vamp bunny or rat and see if it can suddenly tolerate daylight. What choice did he have, really?

The real question is this: If they want day walkers, why don't they just make more day walkers like they made the first one? The vamps know all about Blade, including the origin of his birth. Why don't they just bite some women in the maternity ward? They talked about dissecting Blade and learning as much as they could from his organs. Well, they could do the same with a newly-minted day walker baby, straight from the hospital. No need to get all Jurassic Park with the genetics and crank out a bunch of Predator-faced motherfuckers. See? It doesn't make sense. Why would a Wookiee, an eight-foot-tall Wookiee, want to live on Endor with a bunch of two-foot-tall Ewoks? That does not make sense.

Also unexplained are the motivations of Jared Nomak, the HRIC (Head Reaper In Charge). The reapers must eat voraciously or their own bodies will consume themselves. But this will not happen to Nomak, the "patient zero" of this particular vampiric virus. Does this mean his appetite is not as intense? Has he created his army of reapers in order to overrun the world, or the Vampire Nation, or to take revenge upon his own father? Or did it just happen by accident, because he had to eat? In the end we learn that he is the victim of his father's experiments, and that we should sympathize with him. But we don't learn if he was originally trying to take over the world, or get his revenge, or what. He states quite clearly in the opening scene that he hates vampires. Is he starting a war? or just a hungry victim of science?

I thought this movie was a fun ride, but there was too much that didn't make sense. I prepped by watching Blade first, I was ready for an experience. And while the action was there, though a touch cartoony at times, the action scenes didn't really hold the movie together. The Bloodpack stalks through the sewers after splitting up, of course, which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. That whole reminiscent-of-Aliens scene had me slapping my forehead repeatedly, saying, "They know bullets don't work, so why the hell are they bringing all those guns with them?" and "if light is the only weapon that works, then why is their only light the little one clipped to their guns?" Sure, they had those grenades, but they obviously couldn't use them much in the confined space of the sewers, since the UV grenades would have killed the Bloodpack, too. It was like watching Aliens, if all the marines were armed with flashlights. That would have to have been the scene that was most annoying, logically. But it wasn't the only one. Still, the action was fun and well executed, even a little innovative. And there was plenty of it. Following The Mummy Returns' lead, the action keeps coming throughout Blade 2, even if it has to stop making sense to do it.

© 2002 Jeffrey P. Hui