I propose the operating title: "Blade II: Blunted"

Rating: Null/10 (30 January 2004)

All right, folks. I don't give away the end of the plot, but there are pieces mentioned here. If you truly want to see the movie in all of its low-grade glory, I might spoil a thing or two of course, it might save you a rental fee, so you might well read on and thank me.
Blade II is a well-thought concept in its continuation of the original. Unfortunately, its execution was and remains a blistering pustule on the dirtiest parts of the rear anatomy of the trademark, both movie and comic.
Where shall we begin? Perhaps with the most obvious: the combat sequences. Oh, I agree, the weaponry is rather interesting; I even like the "blade pistol" whatnots. The armor used in the trek into the sewers was also nice, despite looking vaguely fake and insectile. However, the absolute ridiculousness of the combat should make even a novice want to vomit.
Example: Blade takes on a pair of vampires on motorcycles, bent on escaping him, probably by running him over. They're trapped like rats, looking for any way out. Not a good time to screw around, I should think. But the director has Blade take these two on not with his sword, two feet plus in length, but with is glaive {an admittedly nasty but small boomerang-like double-blade knife}. Makes for interesting scenarios of him leaping up and sending the thing spinning through the air and all that rot, but frankly he's not just looking to challenge his abilities, he's got a specific mission in mind, to find the person he cares about most. Ten minutes might be nine longer than he has.
Second Example: What in the name of hell is it with the use of crappy CGI these days? You've got obviously highly-trained martial artists able to do amazing things with their bodies, and you throw this foolishness in just because it's trendy? I think it's an insult both to the people and the arts in which they have worked so hard to become accomplished. It's worse when it's so obvious it's CGI -- the bodies don't move like they should, are unnaturally stiff or too fluid. Give me real, please!
Third and worst: If the movie's a pustule, then wrestling moves are the thing that relocates it to the anus. When first I saw Wesley Snipes' Blade do one, I was sickened. You get a man trained in arts that can shatter bone with fist, add vampiric strength and speed to his attacks, and you have him down piode drivers and elbow drops? And then the villain, who apparently follows WWF more closely, does even more of them. That kind of pandering makes sequels the "whore's movies" they are. Even a fair amount of the martial arts moves have the WWF-style sloppiness or slowness; that or the lack of finesse that concentrates more on how far your opponent flies than in truly disabling a target.
Beyond that, some reason, Blade's sword, the trademark of his very name, looks decorator-model fake during any close-ups -- not just low-grade stainless steel but something akin to aluminum. It even clatters, when it breaks and is thrown to the ground in the final fight scene, like something made of pot metal. Someone should have told the director that if you're have a weapon, much less something supposedly forged of titanium, much less a character's signature weapon, it should give the impression of strength and craftsmanship and not just pretty-shiny like something off a discount rack. Perhaps that's the reason he doesn't use it enough in this movie -- except to flip it around cutely in completely inappropriate moments -- he's afraid of it breaking!
A more minor problem seems to be that Whistler, far from being the proud if grizzled figure that appeared in the first movie, seems to have been reconciled to old age by the second. He didn't truly accomplish all that much, save to get the hell beaten out of him a couple of times and finally beat down Reinhart a bit toward the end. Granted, did manage to go after the captured Blade, and save his arse just in time to have a nice half-vampiric father-son moment.
Which leads to one seemingly unremarkable but honestly vast mistake, which gain happens at the end... I'm suddenly realizing how many of the major mistakes and stupid decisions happened at the finale, yikes. Blade, caught to some grim operating table and having his blood siphoned off {we'll ignore the clichÃ©' from the first movie, of course} pleads with Whistler when the old man comes to save. He pleads for blood. Not his serum -- BLOOD. Blade, who has spent all of his life hunting vampires would never plead for blood, especially not in the idiotic, drawn-out way the director had Snipes do it. It would be a violation of everything that makes the character what it is. All right, it could be argued that he was thinking of the huge vat of blood in Damaskinos' chambers which he leapt into later, but it certainly don't come off that way.
The horrendous soundtrack I think I will leave alone, as I'd probably get railed against for my trouble. However, is rap really the only music appropriate for a fast-past movie with an African American {God I hate the ridiculous locution} star? Is that the best and brightest music, the true mainstay of its urban culture? When a fight scene is to Cypress Hill with the remarkably intelligent beginning of "Listen all you motherf**kers..." it sort of loses it for me right there.
It's too bad that the director obviously doesn't have the sense that God gave a goat, because the movie could have been pretty decent with the ideas that they had for the Reapers and such. The tension between Blade the vampires he must work with was well-done, and there are other parts throughout that have something of the first movie's shine. The rest... so, so sad this all is when directors decide that shock value, special effects, and trends should dominate over the making of a good film.
Conclusion: try again next time, kids. I'll stay with the original.