Blade II
“Blade II” is the last Guillermo Del Toro film I hadn’t seen. Part of my reason for putting it off for a long time was because I was not much of a fan of the first film with Wesley Snipes playing Marvel’s half human/half vampire undead hunter. I finally rewatched the first one a couple of years ago, so it was only a matter of time I get to “Blade II.” I’m not sure if I’ll ever be inspired to revisit it; this character is just not really one I enjoy watching much, even with a wonderful visual stylist like Del Toro at the helm.
The sequel, written by David S. Goyer (who scripted the whole trilogy), takes place two years after the first film, but it really could stand alone, if it wanted to. When we first see him, Blade is trying to rescue his mentor, Whistler (Kris Kristofferson), who was thought to be dead. Blade finds him, and tries to revert him back to full humanity, although Scud (Norman Reedus), Blade’s new weapons creator, is not sure. In the vampire community, an pandemic known as the “Reaper virus” is spreading, which is allowing for immunity to most vampire weaknesses. Vampire Lord Eli Damaskinos (Thomas Kretschmann) would like Blade’s assistance in quelling this infection, and Blade soon teams up with Asad (Danny John-Jules) and Nyssa (Leonor Varela), Eli’s daughter, to stop it. Of course, things will never be as easy as that, and Blade finds himself cornered by enemies known, and unknown, to him.
Goyer is an interesting genre writer, and with the right director (Alex Proyas, Christopher Nolan, Zack Snyder), his scripts are compelling and complete worlds that we can get sucked into. Del Toro is a great genre filmmaker, but this film is missing his particular voice as a storyteller. His penchant for detailed makeup and visual effects and creatures is on full display and makes this a wonderful visual experience even more than the first “Blade” film, but this reminded me a lot of “Alien Resurrection” (and not just because both films have the wonderful Ron Perlman in great supporting roles) in how the words and the vision just do not seem to go together. This film is missing the personal touch that Del Toro brings to even films as flawed as “Mimic” and “Crimson Peak” that are his story to tell. He does a great job keeping this film moving, and giving me something great to look at, but even the Oscar-winner cannot keep me interested in the story Goyer is telling. Part of that is the script, which feels very generic in genre movie terms, and part of that is Snipes, who doesn’t really have much charisma to bring to the character, even though he’s great at the action. Thankfully, next for Del Toro was “Hellboy,” and Goyer wasn’t far away from the Dark Knight trilogy with Nolan. These are two filmmakers who worked better apart than together.
