Not a smart movie, but a stylish and gorily entertaining one.

Rating: 7/10 (2 September 2002)

'Blade 2' is an action movie crossed with a horror. It is macho, gruesome and very, very violent.
That description will have put many of you off completely, which is fair enough, but if you do have a taste for the action genre then you should see this movie, because it kicks ass.
For those of you who have not seen the first film, vampire hunter Blade (Wesley Snipes) is half-human, half-vampire, with their strengths but not their weaknesses - except for a thirst for blood. He's a bit like Buffy, but a lot nastier. In the first film the vampires took his mentor Whistler (Kris Kristoffersen) and Blade is seeking him. Blade finds the old man but also learns that there is a new breed of vampire loose in the world, almost unkillable mutants called Reapers, who feed on vampires as well as humans. Blade must team up with a elite unit of vampires to try and destroy the Reapers, while watching his own back and developing feelings for one of his enemies.
The movie is actually an improvement on the original. We get a closer look at the vampires, particularly one family, and, ironically, they become more human, which makes them more interesting than when they are just sadistic killers. But the real foundation of the film, the thing that all action movies stand or fall on, is the intensity and style of the action. It is here that Blade 2 triumphs. The fights are adrenalin-surging amalgams of power and precision, speed and slow-motion, beauty and brutality. Guns, swords, fangs, kicks, throws, punches, dark glasses, black leather, tatoos (including a Maori design), vampires disintegrating in showers of sparks and gore. Because it is so spectacular, and occurs largely to the undead or faceless guards, the violence does not have the unpleasant, dehumanising feeling that many more realistic action movies do.
With its superhuman warriors the film belongs to the tradition of martial-arts fantasies developed in Hong Kong and is exemplified by 'The Matrix' and 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon'. While it does not have the class or intelligence of those modern classics, Blade 2, with its merging of Gothic shadows and cyberpunk technology, is very stylish. I could not say it was smart, and it certainly is gratuitous, but it is, literally, bloody cool.

7 1/2 /10