style of substance wins again... gah!

Rating: 2/10 (10 October 2003)

Okay, so the original Blade was a highly entertaining film. Not great by any stretch of the imagination, but nevertheless enjoyable.
Blade 2 is not.
No wonder the movie is about vampires, you can tell because it really sucks. (My apologies for this terrible pun... I couldn't resist).
I have forgotten how many times now I have hoped and prayed that such sequels fulfil their obligations and our desires to be thrilled and entertained, only to wind up leaving the cinema disappointed, dejected and depressed that you have irretrievably lost another two hours of your life.
Blade 2 is an example of Capitalism at its worst. You can see how the producers thought about it: Blade made us a shedload of cash, lets make another!
Okay, I think you're getting a pretty clear idea of how I stand on this. So lets expose something of the movie-making frailty that Blade 2 embodies....
Pretty much any scene, by itself captures something of the essence of the first film (and tortures it). No, thats harsh. The scenes individually are okay. Some pretty spectacular fight-scenes, well choreographed and generally well conceived. The trouble comes when one tries to view the film as a continuous narrative. It's as if the film was written by about 7 different script-writers, kept in separate rooms, and not allowed to communicate with each other.
Plot-developments and devices used in one scene, are not carried over to the next, exposing poor continuity and one begins to see the movie for what it actually is: A series of disconnected fight scenes which begin to look more and more like a particularly violent hour on MTV.
The film has one redeeming feature which I was quite surprised to discover: Luke Goss played his part superbly, stealing each scene, and making Blade look like a lunk. Which is essentially what he is. (I'm looking forward to seeing what Luke does next....)
All in all Blade 2 is another classic example of lowest-common denominator movie-making. I've had more fun extracting bee-stings.
A shame, because I love vampires. But I hate Blade 2.