50% more action...almost perfect!

Rating: 10/10 (23 March 2002)

A step or two up from the first outing.
First up, the story is better - some folks are saying there was no story but this one has 200% more story than the cliche that is the first movie's 'plot', that one and this one are really about Snipes fighting vampires, not an in-depth character study. Great plot twists included - there are some moments early on where I was thinking how stupid for Blade to be told and shown so much but later you find out why...now, I wouldn't have told him so much if I was one of those vamps but hey, they wanted his trust right? So, it may have been a bit stupid but it IS possible. Also, not having to set the character up, we get right to business and that equals 40% less exposition.
Action is far better. It wasn't bad in the first one but his foes were not too skilled and the fights were not long enough...as a result, the original Blade film couldn't top the opening fight (one of it's few flaws). but here the fights start high, dip to a steady level and escalate to a smashing finale! Lots of things I am hearing about the fights are that they are too similar to Matrix scenes...this makes complete sense seeing as Donnie Yen, who plays Snowman in Blade 2, was the fight choreographer on this movie (the film's credits say he was assisted by Michael Woods, who was in a bunch of Donnie Yen's Hong Kong films). He learned all about fight choreography from Yuen Wo-ping who did the Matrix fights and he (Yen) also did the fights in some of those Yuen Wo-ping Hong Kong films. So now you know WHY they look so similar...they are not copies of the Matrix, more like brothers to that film's fights.
My ONLY complaint abot Blade 2 is that Donnie should have been used in the movie more than he was...yeah, they also could have dumped some of those special effects fight bits but they really didnt do it too much for the hand to hand stuff, more for the leaps...so, it doesnt get in the way all that much (even if it does look weird).
I'm looking forward to seeing this one again (and still again!) and would tell anyone/everyone to run out and see it. For what is tries to be and how well it succeeds: 10 out of 10!