Just what this franchise needed

Rating: 10/10 (4 April 2016)

Guillermo Del Toro. I am a HUGE fan of this guy, he is a creative force and one of the most versatile creative directors working today. After the success of the first Blade film a sequel of course got under way and the studio hired Del Toro to helm it, this was an odd choice at the time since Del Toro wasn't a household name but in retrospect it was a genius move because it took an awesome movie hampered by a cliché mythos and gave it over to a director who thrives on mythos. Before I can talk about the rest of the movie I have to talk about my favourite aspect of it. The Reapers. Good god I love these things; I love how they're look is inspired by Nosferatu, I love how their lower jaw splits open to became a bug like mouth, I love how they feed on both Vampires and humans, I love how they run sideways and on all fours like old Hollywood gorillas, I love the only Vampire weakness they retain is their weakness to sun, and most of all I love the scene where actually dissect one and we are allowed to see what makes them tick. Del Toro goes out of his way to make these things as alien as possible, not just in the way they look but in the way they behave, as one of the Vampires remarks "they're as different from us as we are from humans", in typical Del Toro style there's something beautiful about them and yet profoundly disturbing at the same time. Everything that was good about the first film is here and better, the action is better, the story is better with higher stakes and all kinds of fun twists and turns, the acting is phenomenal; Wesley Snipes has allowed the Blade character to loosen up a bit and the other actors are all fun especially Ron Perlman, I also love the Elder Vampire Eli Damaskinos who is a classic monster inspired again by Nosferatu, a welcome change from the cliché 'vampire council' from the first film. This movie is great across the board, a great film for superhero film fans, action movie fans, sci-fi movie fans, fantasy movie fans, horror movie fans, Del Toro fans and fans of good cinema in general.