Guess I always like the first one more

Rating: 5/10 (23 March 2002)

Blade 1 had just the right amount of action, horror, gore, paper-thin plot, and cinematic style to create a movie that was entertaining for the masses yet still get some nods from weathered movie critics. Blade II takes this balance and goes over the top, using outlandish fight-scenes, loads of CGI, plenty of blood-dripping, gut-mashing gore, and even a bit more expletive language in the script.
For a movie of this genre, the plot is needlessly complicated and drawn out, and there are a number of pointless plot twists thrown in towards the end. In the first movie, Blade made vampires look sadder than storm troopers, so new baddies were needed for the sequel. Enter the reapers: vampire vampires that resemble the mutant love children of Nosferatu, Quasimodo, and Alien. So Blade teams up with the good vampires to fight the bad vampires. Sounds simple enough, right? So why does it take over 2 hours to get through all the but-kicking? It seems that lately there have been a number of action movies that have aspirations to be epic dramas.
This is an extremely violent and gorey film. "Black Mask" comes to mind as a movie on par with Blade II on the violentometer. Blade II features numerous disemboweling, dismemberment, and mutilation scenes. The action scenes and fight sequences are fairly typical, though many are shot closer than I prefer similar to the confused fight scenes of Batman and Robin. Also, if you ever come face to face with a zombie, mummy, undead, ghoul, vampire, reaper etc... watch out! Forget crosses, silver, or holy water. All monsters in this post-Matrix age are highly trained in Tae-Kwon-Jiu-Jit-Fu, WWF-style.
It wasn't all bad. The movie succeeds as a thriller, making you jump at times. The special ops vampire unit is an interesting lot, though none of them are developed enough for the audience to get attached. Too bad Donnie Yen's talent was wasted. If you're going to use a stereotypical Asian, sword-wielding, samurai character, then dangit at least let him kick a lot of but!
So in short, if you are a big fan of gorefest movies (ie the type who grew up reading Fangoria), then Blade II will not disappoint. If you like your movies to be a little more, or at least know their bounds and not pass them, then I would steer clear of Blade II. My final rating is 5 / 10 (watchable, but mostly forgettable).