Fast and entertaining like the first, "Blade II" meets the demand, but that's all

Rating: 5/10 (12 January 2009)

In 1998 when "Blade" showed us how much fun it can be to watch Wesley Snipes kicking vampire ass, creating the first combination of action movies with society's beloved vampire mythology, we assumed he'd be back for round 2 and we expected it to be just as entertaining. Well, four years later, "Blade II" rolls out, and the good news is that the action and the fast-paced blood-spewing entertainment continues. The bad, however, is that the story and the writing are less creative, failing to really immerse us in the vampire lore that made "Blade" so interesting. While the bad plot development doesn't really saw the legs out from under "Blade II", it certainly makes it difficult for anyone who did not really enjoy the first "Blade" to get anything good out of it.
For the sequel, Mexican director Guillermo Del Toro steps in to replace the vacated spot left by "Blade" director Stephen Norrington. The difference is apparent but not that drastic. Del Toro uses a more martial arts style of filming fight scenes and this takes away some of the highly stylized shots of the first film. The action is not as cool-looking but the fight choreography is a bit better. Del Toro is also more imaginative in terms of how the characters look.
The plot takes place two years after the last film. Blade has been out in search of his mentor Whistler (Kristofferson, who, surprise, didn't actually die in the first film) when he is approached by the vampires who request his help. The reason is that the vampire mutation has apparently evolved into a strain called "reaper" and these reapers feed on vampires. Agreeing only because these reapers are deadlier than vampires with less weaknesses, Blade teams up with some skilled vampires (ironically trained originally to kill him) to take the reapers down.
The reapers are more barbaric creatures--not very interesting for the film's focus, but brought to life in an interesting way by Del Toro. They are pale, bald creepy figures with chins that open up to reveal parasites for feeding on their victims. They make the overall tone of "Blade II" more about the gross than the sleek like vampires. In fact, most of the vampires in the film are just dubbed as such, it doesn't really play a role in their characters. The lore of the first film is simply taken for granted here so we can jump right into the plot.
The cast is even worse than "Blade." Why? Because there are more people in it. Last time, the only bad performance we had to deal with regularly was Stephen Dorff as the evil Deacon Frost. This time, there's a whole crew of pathetic vampires and then some other nuisances. The worst might be the annoying new sidekick of Blade's/tech geek character Scud played by Norman Reedus. The script also calls for a new vampire love interest for Blade, which might be the worst part of the film. There's nothing in the film that says these two should be interested in each other yet they are. Those two examples are just the stand outs in a cast that you kind of are just hoping will die at some point in the film, which interestingly enough, most of them do.
David S. Goyer, the original film's writer, continues with the great pacing that made "Blade" entertaining, but in this film, there are too many characters and the pacing leads to us not caring at all about any of them except Blade. Even then, "Blade II" is only an excuse for Blade to kill more vampires/reapers, not grow as a character. Some of the strengths of his character from the original just disappear, like his struggle with the fact that he's half- vampire. This is mostly because the plot is not conducive to rehashing those themes.
"Blade II" is a great example of how a sequel maintains the entertaining elements of the original but cuts off the material underneath with a fair plot. The film aims for "not disappointing" instead of "good," and so it achieves just that and nothing more.