lade the vampire hunter (Snipes), picking up where he left off, is stalking bloodsuckers with brutal efficiency. He has tracked his old mentor, Whistler (Kristofferson), to Prague, where vampires have taken his lifeless corpse for reasons unknown. Finding Whistler unconscious in a vat of blood, Blade releases him and momentarily contemplates staking the now undead old man.
But he thinks better of it. He takes Whistler back to his workshop lair and his new partner, a street kid named Scud (Norman Reedus). Blade administers a quick-fix serum to counteract the vampire virus infecting Whistler. But before they know it, they are set upon by intruders.
Two ninja-like warrior vampires engage Blade in a fierce sword battle. They stop just as the duel gets lethal and reveal themselves as messengers, sent to recruit Blade for a campaign to save humans and the undead alike.
The warriors, it turns out, are Nyssa (Varela) and the Bloodpack, an elite guard of the vampire world. Originally created to hunt down Blade, they now find themselves with a more perilous task. A new strain of powerful and ruthless vampire has emerged—a Reaper, described as a "crack addict" with a thirst for blood and no regard for vampire or human life. If they cannot be stopped, they will infect others and overrun the world.
The vampire emperor, Damaskinos (Thomas Kretschmann), proposes a truce so that Blade may join forces with the Bloodpack to eliminate the Reapers.
Such a truce does not come easily, especially given the hatred between Blade and Reinhardt (Perlman), the leader of the vamp pack. Partnered in uneasy alliance, the sword-wielding Daywalker and his pale companions nevertheless discover that they must work together or face horrible transfiguration in the jaws of Nomak (Luke Goss) and the nearly indestructible Reaper horde.
Several cuts below the original
Blade II is the follow-up to 1998's surprise hit film, based on the Marvel Comics series Blade the Vampire Hunter. It teams the original star and writer with a new director, the stylish helmer of Cronos and Mimic.
The sequel takes the original film's attractions and ramps them up several notches. Chief among these are the accomplished fight scenes, combining computer-assisted Matrix-y wire acrobatics, kung fu and sword duels that would put a Jedi to shame. Aficionados of Mexican director del Toro also will recognize the fluid and confident camera movement, lurid compositions and graphic gore and violence. His camera often follows the action in impossible ways, tracking Blade as he leaps off a tall building, flips in midair and lands catlike on the balls of his feet. An early corrido del toros sequence—sword and cape versus motorcycle-bound vampires—puts a similar Mission: Impossible 2 stunt to shame.
Blade II, photographed by Aria's Mexican-born cinematographer Gabriel Beristain, also has a burnished quality—deep shadows, firelight and stone contrasted with blue steel, glass and neon.
But like Snipes' titular hero, the movie is all slick moves and attitude, but doesn't say a lot. Where the first movie plumbed the depths of Blade's conflicting passions, this film gives lip service to the topic, but mostly dispenses with anything thoughtful in favor of ever-escalating action. The sequel also squanders the chance to examine Blade's conflicted feelings about teaming up with his mortal enemies, or their mix of admiration and dread for the Daywalker.
Where the first film was cut with Grand-Guignol energy and humor, this film winds up feeling frenetic and noisy. Fight scenes collide one upon without pause, like corpses falling into a sewer, growing in brutality until all but the hardiest viewer will find himself grimacing. And then del Toro takes it even farther, offering a gruesome Reaper autopsy here, a twitching severed head there.
