This bloody punch-fest lacks the charming antagonists that livened the original movie.Basically, this movie doesn't have the heart the first one did.

Rating: 7/10 (24 September 2014)

Blade 2 takes what works in the original and gives us more. Unfortunately, plot and character development appear to have been left on the cutting room floor.The fight scenes are fun, but it grows tedious. While blade 2 is much more eye-catching than its blood-drenched Stephen Norrington-directed predecessor, the new script by the returning David S. Goyer is much sillier.This bloody punch-fest lacks the charming antagonists that livened the original movie.If only as much time was spent on the script as was spent on the fight choreography.Take away everything that was original about BLADE, add some exploding vampires, and vampire night at the WWF - you get BLADE II, a knock-off, rip-off waste of film, released to suck the blood and money out of audiences everywhere.Just never seems very convinced of itself that a sequel was even necessary.This second instalment in the trilogy tries to crank things up even more than in the action packed original, which makes for an obnoxiously hyper active movie.Isn't as sharp as the original,Despite some visual virtues, Blade II just doesn't cut it.The fast-paced action is unnervingly fast, almost dizzying. The story is thin, the plot is predictable, but Wesley Snipes carries this comic book character off with enough clever humour and self-indulgent pathos to carry it off.There are plot twists and inventive fight scenes galore, but what director Guillermo Del Toro loves most is the gore.Blade II is almost excessively violent OK, it is excessively violent but that's exactly what Snipes and Blade fans want. Believe me, they get it.Everything that was right about Blade is wrong in its sequel.