Blade must fight alongside his old enemies

Rating: 7/10 (8 May 2017)

As this instalment opens we see a man going to a rather sinister looking blood bank in Prague; it is run by the vampires and they intend to drain him little do they know that they are his prey. He is Nomak, a 'Reaper' or mutated vampire that will kill people and turn other vampires into a reaper like himself. Meanwhile Blade rescues his friend Whistler from his two years of captivity with the vampires. Shortly afterwards Nyssa; the daughter of the leading vampire approaches Blade with a surprising request; the vampires want his help to eliminate the reapers. He agrees but it is a very unstable alliance; many of the vampires he has been asked to fight alongside want to kill him there and then. Once the action gets underway they learn something rather worrying; the reapers aren't effected by silver of garlic only sunlight or intense ultra violet light will stop them. As the film progresses it emerges that not everything the vampires told Blade was true; in fact some facts about the reapers was even withheld from Nyssa.
This film isn't quite as good as the first but it still provides plenty of entertainment. There are lots of impressively choreographed fight scenes and some spectacular vampire deaths; the use of CGI meant these looked cool rather than gruesome. Wesley Snipes impresses as Blade especially in the numerous fight scenes which he makes look real. The supporting cast is solid enough with Kris Kristofferson returning as Whistler; Ron Perlman putting an entertaining performance as the vampire Reinhardt; Leonor Varela as Nyssa and Norman Reedus, who plays Blade's new weapon designer 'Scud'. The story itself is perfectly fine if fairly predictable for the most part; there is a decent twist later on. I liked the design of the reapers; their mouths were possibly the most disturbing thing in the film. This may not be director Guillermo del Toro's best film but he does a fine job keeping it pretty dark without making it hard to see what is going on. Overall I'd say this is a decent sequel; I imagine most fans of the first film will enjoy it.