monotonous action film

Rating: Null/10 (17 November 2002)

I seem to recall a time, in the not too distant past, when vampire movies actually made a little effort to be scary. This is no longer the case, apparently, for nowadays the vampires themselves have become so image-conscious that they just can't seem to be bothered with anything as mundane as conjuring up a few goose bumps for a thrill-starved audience. These modern-day Draculas need to devote all their time and energy to proving just how hip, cool and trendy they really are. Take the bloodsuckers in `Blade II.' In this sequel to the highly successful 1998 original, the vampires all talk in the vernacular of streetwise thugs and sport the very latest in grunge attire (one would think that there would be at least a few old timers in their ranks who would rather don a Bela Lugosi-type tuxedo than a torn jeans and leather ensemble, but, apparently, in this day and age, vampirism has become strictly a young person's game).

In this film, Wesley Snipes returns as Blade, the laconic `half-vampire' who, unlike his full-blooded brethren, can move around in the daylight. Blade has dedicated his life to defending mankind against the deadly assaults from the world's apparently enormous vampire population. However, in `Blade II,' a new twist has been added. Blade learns that a new form of vampire  a `super vampire,' one that feeds on vampires as well as humans - has suddenly been unleashed onto the earth, and the mere conventional vampires are forced to enlist the aid of their own archenemy to help defeat this new strain.
Because `Blade II' ends up substituting action for suspense, the movie quickly turns into a monotonous series of nonstop chase scenes, gun battles and kickboxing sequences  all filmed so darkly that it is often hard to fully see what is happening on screen. I guess we are paying the price for the success of `The Matrix,' since every action movie worth its salt now has to feature at least half a dozen martial arts sequences to make the action-hungry audience feel it is getting its money's worth. The makers of `Blade II' also rely so heavily on gross-out effects and state-of-the-art gizmos and gadgets that they all but drain the life's blood out of the film. With no one for us to identify with or care about, there is really no way for the story to generate any actual suspense. We sit and watch, admiring of the technical aspects of the film, perhaps, but completely unabsorbed in the action on screen. In `Blade II,' the vampires, super-vampires and pseudo-vampires, by waging what is little more than a two-hour long gun battle, end up boring us long before the sun peeks over the horizon.