Blade II (2002)

Starring: Wesley Snipes, Kris Kristofferson, Norman Reedus, Ron Perlman, and Donnie Yen
Grade: B+

In the final minute, there’s a whorehouse Rush goes into in England that is called “Fuckingham Palace”, which is arguably the greatest thing this sequel comes up with. Not sure what he needed those razor blades for “just in case”, however.

Summary

At the Parizska Blood Blank in Prague, Czech Republic, a man enters and sits down to a visibly sickly one, Jared Nomak (Luke Goss). Jared intends on giving blood, and it’s his first time there. The man tells Jared they pay cash there and there is no limit to how many times you give blood. They even buy it by the jar. Soon after, the nurse calls Jared over, and they walk and talk to the lower level. She gives him the routine questions like if he got a tattoo or has had any ear, skin, or body piercings over the last 12 months. He hasn’t. She then asks where he got the scar on his chin to which he passes off as a childhood accident. He also confirms he doesn’t have any immediate next of kin he’s in contact with, has no one to call in case of emergency, and has no family to speak of. Now, Jared is questioning if he can still be a donor. The nurse isn’t sure, bringing up how they found some unusual results in his blood test. Apparently, his blood has a very rare phenotype, one they haven’t encountered before. As Jared follows her into a room, they lock the door behind him, and some guards force him into a chair. A man near Jared says they have a good/bad news situation. It’s good news for him and the nurse, but it’s bad news for Jared. He puts on this claw-like glove with the intention of injecting Jared, but Jared begins to manically laugh at them. Jared jumps up from the seat and bites the nurse. The guard shoots him, but there is no effect. Jared turns and knocks the guard to the ground. He grabs the other man by the door, stares into the security camera declaring that he hates vampires and kills that guy too.

To remind us of the events of the first film, Blade (Snipes) speaks in a voiceover to tell everyone to forget what they think they know and that vampires exist. The “Daywalker” in Blade himself was born half-human and half-vampire. He has all the strengths of a vampire and none of their weaknesses, except for the thirst. Twenty years ago, he met a man that changed his life in Abraham Whistler (Kristofferson). He taught Blade how to hold the thirst at bay, the rules, and gave him the weapons to hunt with. Of course, these weapons consist of silver, garlic, and sunlight. Two years ago, Whistler was attacked. They took him and turned him into the thing he hates most, a vampire. Blade realizes he should have finished him off, but now, he’s hunting him.

Still in Prague, Blade is chasing and shooting a group of vampires in some kind of underground facility. Two escape on motorcycles upon getting outside, but Blade catches the last guy by leaping from the building, landing on the ground perfectly, and firing a shot straight through his back. The motorcycle guys come back to attack Blade. They are able to dodge his bladed boomerang, but he still takes out both of them. With one of the motorcycle guys, Blade jumps on their back while they drive and chokes him out until he disintegrates. Blade then drives the bike to a stop before he crashes into his own car. He drives back over to the other guy in Rush (Santiago Segura) as he gets up. Blade demands to be taken to Whistler, but Rush acts like he doesn’t know where he is. Blade begins to push Rush’s head towards the moving back tire of the motorcycle to force the issue. Rush says Whistler shot himself and then he turned. They just kept him alive. In a hideout, some vampires are snorting red cocaine, so we can only assume it’s laced with blood or something. They are interrupted by Rush at the door. Once they open it, Blade shoots through the doorman and presents Rush as his hostage. They shoot through Rush to get to Blade, but Rush takes it. Apparently, the bullets aren’t silver, but they hurt like hell. Blade pushes through and kills several more at once. Then, he leaves Rush there and continues by himself after everything is cleared (“Catch you later”). Blade finds Whistler hooked up in a chamber submerged in water. He opens it to drain the water out and uses his sword to cut the unconscious Whistler free. He grabs his silver because he intends on killing him, but he has a change of heart when Whistler opens his eyes and looks at him. Blade decides to take him back to his hideout where Scud (Reedus) is working. Scud has been Blade’s weaponsmith since Whistler has been gone. Scud is surprised he didn’t kill Whistler and has a bad feeling about this, but Blade has Scud help him with Whistler as they take him to a private room.

Scud thinks they should put him out his misery now. Ignoring him, Blade states they had him on stasis in a halfway house. Pulling out a syringe, Blade tells Scud that he’s giving Whistler an accelerated retro-viral detox. It’s like making a heroin addict go cold turkey in one night.

Scud doesn’t think it’s going to work and suggests he kill Whistler immediately, so Blade has Scud leave the room. Not entirely sure if the real Whistler is still there, Blade gets close to him and says the blinds are going to open in the morning whether he’s cured or not. Blade leaves and locks the door behind him. Scud tries to apologize, but Blade doesn’t want to hear it. He just signals for Scud to walk away. In private, Blade goes to a room and opens a box containing the gun that he gave to Whistler to use on himself in the first Blade. He remembers what was supposed to be Whistler’s suicide vividly in a flashback. Coming out of the flashback the next morning, Blade loads the gun and enters Whistler’s room to see how he feels. He’s ready to kill him if he has to. Thankfully, Whistler is back to normal. Afterwards, Whistler asks Blade how he managed to find him. Blade started out in Moscow, and then Romania, but they kept moving Whistler around. Due to Blade not wanting to get into details about how long it took, Whistler realizes he was gone for years. Whistler mentions how he was tortured almost to death and then they had him heal in a vat of blood just so they could do it again. As he grabs his ring from where he secretly hid it, he comments how the least they could have done was fix his leg while they were at it. He asks where his arc welder is, so Blade directs him to Scud who’s using it to light his cigarette while he works. Scud introduces himself and goes over to watch The Powerpuff Girls on his mini-TV before Whistler asks him what he did to Blade’s car. Scud explains how he modified it with nitrous oxide among other things. Whistler isn’t impressed, pointing out how he gave the car a more aggressive exhaust profile ramping. Scud says it can get the car to 300 horsepower, but Whistler dismisses it because it will burn the car out before its next oil change. Whistler looks over at Blade and asks where he found Scud, prompting Scud to ask what his problem is.

In Whistler’s defense, he’s been sucking blood clots for two years. Once he got out, he sees Scud fucking with his life’s work. Scud argues they jeopardized their whole operation just to save Whistler, but Whistler is offended Scud is including himself in this because Whistler is the one who built the operation. He grabs Scud aggressively as he says it. They are interrupted by their motion sensor alarms going off. Vampires are infiltrating the place. Scud works on his computer and sees the security cameras being taken out. Whistler realizes they are using magnesium flares, and they have Scud’s security system scoped out. He grabs a rifle, but Scud tries to stop Whistler because he doesn’t trust him. Not having time for it, Whistler hits him with the gun. As Blade grabs his sword, Whistler is looking around for the vampires. He doesn’t notice they are swinging above him from the structure of the ceiling. As soon as the masked vampires drop down to the ground however, Whistler stars shooting at them. He’s quickly taken down, so Scud distracts them until Blade shows up. Blade calls for the guard lights to be turned on, so Scud hits a button and a wall of lights turn on behind Blade. This attracts the two’s attention, and they try to double team Blade. It’s a great sword fight that only ends once the masked Asad (Danny John-Jules) tells the masked Nyssa (Leonor Varela) to put her sword away. Asad then tells Blade that his people shot first, and they are there to deliver a message. They represent the ruling body of the vampire nation. They are offering Blade a truce and want to meet with him. Asad even kneels before Blade and holds out a cylinder of sorts. Blade tells Scud to turn off the guard lights and tells the two to take their masks off, so they do. They introduce themselves to Blade, and Nyssa admits Blade has been their most feared enemy. However, there is currently something worse on the streets than Blade. With this, Blade, Whistler, and Scud go with Asad and Nyssa on a helicopter to hear out the vampire nation.

During the ride, Nyssa tells Scud how they would tell stories about Blade like he was “The Boogeyman”, but she’s disappointed because Blade agreed to come surprisingly easily. Scud tells Blade to “show her”. With this, Blade opens his jacket to Nyssa to show he’s strapped with Semtex, enough explosives to level a city block.

They arrive at the vampire hideout, and Scud notes how the guards are probably “familiars”, regular humans who have vampire masters and want to be turned. Whistler isn’t sure about this meeting, but Blade reminds him of the Semtex in case something goes wrong. They get to a door, and Blade hands over the cylinder they gave him. They put it into this keyboard, and it opens a larger door. Nyssa says the true power of the vampire nation lies here. Upon getting inside, they are introduced to ancient vampire, Overlord Eli Damaskinos (Thomas Kretschmann). Though Eli considers Blade an enemy, he congratulates him on his success for eliminating Deacon Frost from the first Blade. Karel Kounen (Karel Roden) tells Blade he did them a favor by getting rid of Frost. Blade shakes his hand but notices the glyph on his hand, realizing Karel is human. Karel responds comically, “Barely, I’m a lawyer”. He’s a European health consortium. Eli talks about how vampirism is a horrible virus carried in the saliva of predators. In 72 hours, it spreads through the human bloodstream creating new parasitic organs. Blade interrupts to refer to it as cancer, but Eli argues that it’s cancer with a purpose. Karel chimes in to say viruses evolve too, and they have encountered a new one which they have dubbed the “Reaper Strain”. Like any pathogen, it appears to have found a carrier. Putting in the security camera footage of Jared from the opening, he shows the group what he’s talking about. Eli knows Jared was born a vampire, but he’s an anomaly like Blade. Unlike the rest of the vampires though, Jared feeds on humans and vampires. Blade thinks Jared was doing him a favor, but Nyssa says Blade is missing the point. Their vampire victims don’t die. They turn and become carriers. Asad says they are like crack addicts and need to feed daily. Jared has been up for 72 hours. By their own estimates, there are already a dozen Reapers. There will be hundreds before the end of the week, thousands within a matter of months, and so and so forth.

So, they want Blade to hunt the Reapers for the vampires. Eli points out that they will only come for the humans once they are finished with vampires, so they have a mutual interest in taking the Reapers out. On top of this, Karel reveals they have spent two years training a small tactical unit, the Bloodpack. They want Blade to lead them. Funnily enough, Nyssa admits they have been training for two years to hunt Blade. In private, Scud asks Blade what he thinks, and Blade is cool with it. However, Whistler asks what he really thinks, prompting Blade to admit “They’re gonna fuck us the first chance they get”. Still, they will play along for now since they will be taken in deeper than they have ever been before. It will give them a chance to see how their world really ticks. Whistler isn’t into it, and Scud tells Blade that he’s worried about Whistler because no one goes cold turkey from the thirst in one night. That night, Jared gets the attention of a drug dealer, and they meet in an alley. Obviously, Jared doesn’t want any drugs and bites the guy. His followers finish the man off. Back at the hideout, Blade injects himself with the serum and Nyssa walks in to let him know the team is ready when he is. Right after, Blade is introduced to the entire Bloodpack. Along with Nyssa and Asad, there is the facial tattoo having Lighthammer (Daz Crawford), pink-haired Verlaine (Marit Velle Kile), long-haired Priest (Tony Curran), Snowman (Yen), Chupa (Matt Schulze), and Reinhardt (Perlman). Reinhardt immediately starts talking shit to Blade, and Blade laughs it off. He knows they have been training for 2 years to take him out, so he challenges Reinhardt to do it. All the members of the Bloodpack point their guns at Blade, but Nyssa waves them off. Blade continues to punk him. While he messes with his weapon to distract Reinhardt, he sneaks in two slaps to Reinhardt’s face. Verlaine and Chupa want Reinhardt to do something, and Blade welcomes it.

Finally, he goes to strike Blade, but Blade blocks his attempt and plants an explosive device into the back of Reinhardt’s head, which is filled with silver nitrate. Blade lets them know that it’s rigged to go off if anyone tampers with it, and he will have the detonator on him. After he threatens Reinhardt some more, Blade tells them all they need to work as a unit and follow his orders. Blade turns to Nyssa and Asad and gives them the first directive. To catch the hunter, they need to start with the prey. They will target all the night places where vampires congregate such as blood banks and safe houses. With this, he asks them what the first location is. Nyssa takes him to the House of Pain. The two hang outside, and Blade doesn’t see an entrance, signs, or vampire glyphs. Nyssa reveals that vampires as a collective have had to rethink their habits because of Blade, especially with the tightening of their security. She gives Blade specialized binoculars to look through. Using them, he sees the vampire glyph on the wall. Afterwards, Whistler lets them in on the weapons they are using. He mentions the .38, .45, 9mm caliber, and how they are “all with foil capsules at the tip filled with silver nitrate and garlic extract”. He also shows them a hyper velocity stake gun that spits out a silver stake at 6,000 feet per second. Noting how they don’t like sunlight, he also modified the gun’s entry light with a UV filter. He jokingly points it at Priest to show how the filter is on while Priest points his gun back at him. At the same time, Scud shows Blade what he came up with. It’s a bladed wrist weapon that has a pneumatic syringe delivery system. The vials are filled with the anti-coagulant EDTA, which was something Karen introduced in the first movie. The cartridge ejects and it has automatic reloads. Blade likes it. The team is about to move in, but they let Whistler know there’s no chance he will pass for one of them. Whistler doesn’t care, but Blade agrees with them and tells Whistler to post up on the roof to cover the team. Whistler gets offended that the Bloodpack is calling the shots now and walks away aggressively to the roof.

He bumps into Reinhardt on the way, so Reinhardt tells Blade to curb his “dog” or they will do it for him.

Blade turns on the explosive device to remind Reinhardt that it’s there, so he calms down. As Whistler gets to his post with his sniper rifle, Blade leads the team into the House of Pain. Before they open the door, Nyssa reminds Blade he is entering their world and will see them feeding. She stresses to remember why he is there, and he assures her that he hasn’t forgotten. They enter the rave taking place, and Rush is there. He spots Blade and runs. Blade has Scud on his radio, as Scud is in the van waiting outside while looking at the security camera footage. Blade lets Scud know the whole place is a safe house. The windows are painted black, there’s one access door, and there’s 200-300 vampires in there. Scud calls Whistler on the radio to check in and jokingly asks how the weather is since it began raining. In the rave, Priest comments how half of the people there aren’t even purebloods and they should just kill everyone to make sure. Reinhardt points the laser from his pistol directly at Blade’s chest, adding that it would be so easy. Blade can see him and has a laser pointed back at him. Chupa points it out to Reinhardt, so Reinhardt mouths “Fuck you” to Blade from across the room, getting a smile out of Blade. Underneath the main floor, Jared and his Reaper followers lurk. They can sense the Daywalker is there. While Nyssa searches through a separate floor in the building and Snowman walks by two feeding on some girl, Lighthammer and Verlaine find a quiet room in the back. A Reaper spots them. While having a donut and a cigarette, Scud lets the team know they have a half hour before sunrise. Asad spots a Reaper inside but loses him. He tells everyone to be on the lookout. Just then, Scud hears some movement outside the van, so he turns his lights on and off. Inside, Nyssa inspects an attic but doesn’t find anything. Blade is with her on that floor. Panicking, Scud tells Whistler there are Reapers on the roof of his van, but Whistler isn’t by his post anymore. He left his gun too. Back inside, Jared grabs Nyssa and covers her mouth.

As the Reapers began to approach the Bloodpack inside, Scud exits the van with two pistols. He sees a group of Reapers, and they run towards him. So, he gets back inside the van.

Back inside, Blade finds Jared holding Nyssa. Blade and Jared recognize who each other are immediately. Jared questions if Blade is a friend or an enemy considering what he’s been doing. Nyssa gives Blade the nod and elbows Jared. Blade shoots Jared in the head, and he flies into some furniture. Inside the club, the Bloodpack begin open firing at the Reapers. All the people at the rave run. Back in the van, Scud starts shooting at the Reapers surrounding him. Jared escapes, so Blade and Nyssa go to chase him. However, Blade stops her, reminding her that daylight is coming. He goes after Jared alone. Lighthammer breaks a Reaper’s neck, but he just fixes himself. On the main floor, the Bloodpack is shooting at the Reapers, but they aren’t reacting to the silver in their bullets. Scud has a Reaper on his hood, so he drives the van straight into a wall. Snowman is able to stab one, but it climbs up a wall to escape. The one on the van wakes up and starts breaking through the windshield to get Scud. At the same time, more Reapers get on top of the van. A Reaper takes out Priest and opens its jaw to bite him with an elongated tongue. Another does the same and bites Lighthammer while scraping his back with his claws. Scud is able to hotwire his van to turn the lights on, and it incinerates the Reaper. At the same time, Lighthammer manages to shoot off the one Reaper and Verlaine chases it off to make sure. She can see that Lighthammer is bleeding and asks if it bit him. He denies it and just makes the focus about his wounded back. He covers his neck wound, so she won’t see. Scud tells the team on the radio to use the UV lights if they are under attack. Whistler opens Scud’s door right after to make sure everything is good. Reinhardt incinerates a Reaper with the UV light on his gun. Asad wounds the one that was feeding on Priest until it runs away. The team lets Blade know he’s on his own because daylight is here. Just then, Blade finds himself across from Jared while standing on a scaffold.

Jared points out how they have the same enemy, but it doesn’t matter. They get into a fight, and Blade stabs him several times with the wrist weapons Scud created. Jared pauses for a moment, and there is visible movement in his head as he screams in pain. He then shakes it off and tackles Blade off the scaffold, punching him on the way down. As Blade fights him with his sword, Jared is able to hit Blade hard enough to draw blood. Once light begins to come through the covered windows and reflect off Blade’s sword to burn Jared however, Jared runs out of there. Blade makes it downstairs and finds Nyssa, demanding to know why she didn’t tell him the Reapers were immune to silver and garlic. She didn’t know, so Blade asks if she would have told him had she did know. She is a bit offended and says he knows the truth when he hears it. Blade questions why Jared didn’t kill her then, but Nyssa doesn’t know. The two rejoin the Bloodpack and they look over Priest, telling Blade he’s been bitten 20 minutes ago. Priest is screaming in pain, as his skin is burning. Blade knows he’s on the verge of turning. Priest tells Chupa to kill him, so Chupa shoots him several times. It’s too late, however. He’s turned into a Reaper and begins to squeal at them. Reinhardt grabs Snowman’s sword and cuts off the top of Priest’s head, but it’s no use. Blade has everyone move and shoots several holes in the wall to let sunlight shine directly onto Priest to kill him. Whistler and Scud walk into the building, and Whistler says they’re in trouble. Scud snitches on him for leaving his post, so Chupa asks Whistler where he was. He says he dealt with some Reapers himself. Chupa threatens him, so Whistler leads all of them to the Reaper he caught. He saw it moving in the alley, so he followed it down. It was trying to crawl back into the culvert but caught its arm. He’s been gnawing it at like a coyote. Reinhardt is about to kill it, but Nyssa notes how he’s already dying so she wants to examine him as quickly as possible. Blade has them open it and they go deeper into a sewer.

Back at the vampire hideout, Karel tells Eli that the Bloodpack have made contact with the Reapers. He says they only had one casualty, so Eli just wants a confirmation it wasn’t Nyssa. Once Karel assures him it wasn’t, he tells Eli that he is playing a dangerous game. Karel thinks Blade is too volatile and Eli won’t be able to keep manipulating him. However, Eli tells him to not worry so much, adding that their mole on the inside of the operation is assuring him all the events are unfolding as planned. Karel notes how he already lost one of his own and questions how many he’s willing to sacrifice. Eli calmly responds, “Everyone”, even his own daughter.

My Thoughts:

Continuing on from its predecessor without missing a beat in action, style, or vampiric glory, visionary horror director Guillermo del Toro takes the director’s chair to successfully deliver the long-awaited sequel, Blade II. Raising the stakes and capitalizing on the momentum it builds for itself with a larger threat at hand and a better cast for the titular star to interact with, this Blade installment maintains a strong pace, conjures up an intriguing and involving premise that shakes up the core without rattling the cage too much, and it’s filled to the brim with large-scale action sequences that strengthen the legend of one of Marvel’s coolest heroes, as he slices and dices, shoots out, and kicks the ass of every vampire that dares to face off against him. In a lot of ways, it matches the first film and even has an argument that it may exceed it depending on one’s preferences.

In Blade, the vampires were the sleek, modern interpretation of what the mythical beings were. The House of Delegates consisting of the ancient purebloods were smooth and professional and looked at life with humans like an evolving business. At the same time, there was still the other side of things led by young wild child Deacon Frost, who wanted to cause a stir with his devoted followers of reckless clubgoers and rulebreakers. It was unique and worked to some degree for the sake of the movie, but the combination of the casting and the in-fighting of the villains undermined them and undercut their potential as believable threats to the hero. With Blade II, filmmaker Guillermo del Toro’s influence is seen from the start. A fan of horror and the macabre, del Toro makes a concerted effort to stray away from the tired romanticism and modernization of the vampire mythos that proved to be popular in the late 90s and early 2000s, as he wanted to make vampires scary again by bringing back the monstrous look and presentation to match their ultimate goal of feeding on the innocent, as it aligns much more with a race who attacks nonstop on anyone unlucky enough to be in the vicinity of the bloodsucking terrors. At the same time, the director doesn’t go completely in this direction to forget about the foundation laid either, as the “modern” look was still a big part of what made the first movie what it was, as it inspired a subculture of basement-dwelling superfans to this very day. Because of this, del Toro satisfies both crowds by giving audiences a new batch of monster villains for both sides of the coin, though they aren’t simple-minded monsters who are just waiting to be killed by Blade. Just like the first film, there is quite a bit of politicking and backstabbing in the vampire world that keeps everyone involved on their toes because there is a lot more at stake than the heroes realize, even if they already assumed there was more it than the initial offer. Remember, Blade and Whistler are two of the most jaded and cynical heroes in all of Marvel and do not engage in tomfoolery whatsoever.

Just ask Hannibal King in Blade: Trinity.

Blade and Whistler know there is something brewing underneath the surface. They just haven’t found it yet. Nevertheless, Blade II‘s first act makes things quite interesting in this regard. First of all, it’s a big deal that the vampire nation has to reach out to their mortal enemy for help, and the fact that they are doing so is enough of a jolt to the system for fans and general audiences to realize this new threat is serious. These vampires are that desperate that they go to Blade for help because there is an even stronger evil at bay. This is the equivalent of the Vietnamese teaming with John Rambo to take on North Korea, the Nazis teaming with Indiana Jones to defeat Megatron, or the xenomorph teaming with Ellen Ripley to take on Emperor Palpatine or something. This is not normal!

By the way, for those writers of one-shot graphic novels and fan fiction, don’t take any of those ideas seriously. It’s the last thing we need.

Anyway, this temporary alliance is a big deal. These vampires have been dealing with the genocidal actions of Blade since he took on the assignment at a young age, and they literally tell stories about him to generations of vampires as if he’s their “Boogeyman”, according to Nyssa herself. The fact that they have to swallow their pride this hard by kneeling before him and initiating a truce, which is essentially them admitting temporary defeat to one singular man, is a momentous moment in the series when you think about it. Even though Whistler and Scud technically aid him with weapons and such, Blade is literally just a one-man wrecking crew but cannot be touched because he’s that much of a badass who strikes fear into the hearts of all vampires. Extending the olive branch in this manner despite their fear and hatred of the man is the ultimate sign of respect for the character, and it adds a great deal to the superhero’s folklore, reminding audiences of the legend they haven’t seen since 1998. What’s cool is how Blade responds. He doesn’t smile and get cocky like Tony Stark because his ego is inflated by these two nor does he take their pleas for help as an innocent cry with no ulterior motives like Captain America, who tends to see the best in everyone to a fault. No, this is what’s different about Blade. Knowing the character inside and out, Wesley Snipes doesn’t break or change the foundation he initially laid with the ultra-serious hero. Blade senses their honesty in the moment and reads the situation well enough to know they are serious about a temporary truce. Even so, he doesn’t walk blindly into a potential trap, a key trait of Blade that is magnified in this sequel in particular. Because of his cynicism, he always has a backup plan, as he doesn’t trust a soul other than Whistler. Knowing they are dipping their toes into the vampire nation’s hideout, he straps himself with Semtex, willing to blow up himself and everyone there if things go awry, just in case this is yet another plot to kill him. On the other hand, he’s willing to hear out their call for a truce if it is indeed what they say it is.

While there, the grotesque Eli Damaskinos reveals the details as to why they need Blade’s help, doubling down on their desperation, as this new race of “Reapers” is attacking both of their kinds and is entirely its own thing. In a case of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”, Blade accepts the mission because this is serious enough to supersede his everyday duties as the nightmare of vampires everywhere. Nevertheless, the real Blade shines through as soon as he’s alone with his two friends. Even if this Reaper situation is that bad, he is still not fully convinced they won’t fuck him the first chance they get, a theory he is proven right about throughout the Blade franchise. Knowing vampires as well as he and Whistler do, you can’t help but agree with their suspicions. However, the opportunity is still too good to pass up, as they will learn even more about vampires and how they operate if they are to team with the Bloodpack and infiltrate more vampire hideouts. To work as a team, they have to let Blade in a lot of tricks of the trade, and he can take a mental note of it moving forward. A great example of this is Nyssa admitting how the vampires have had to adjust their usual tactics like marking glyphs on their hideouts, as Blade has figured out a lot of their shtick and they all know it. Still, she’s forced to show Blade what she means, giving him specialized binoculars to see how the glyphs are there but hidden to the untrained eye. With this, Nyssa proves that she’s trustworthy and is serious about this mission to wipe out the Reapers, despite being a member of the Blade hit squad known as the Bloodpack. On top of proving herself as the trustworthy one of the group and Blade responding in kind, it also shows how much damage Blade has done to their community as a singular ass kicker. Even though he’s only been aided by one or two guys, Blade has been so successful in his hunt and pursuit of all vampires that the entire race has had to change their ways to avoid his wrath. As a big fan of the superhero, this is one of the coolest revelations of the series.

He is the definition of a one-man army.

At the same time, these small details being revealed ensure Blade that he made the right decision to come along, as everything he learns from this group will help him kill more vampires moving forward. Nevertheless, all of this fuels the Dirty Dozen-like aspect of the second act, as all of these weapon-wielding vampires share a certain uneasiness with their de-facto leader in Blade. They know he’s slaughtered their people for years and how he dares any of them to cross him because it will just give him more of a reason to add them to his list. It adds a significant amount of tension to the movie in the midst of the war they are already in, and these chemistry issues that are thrown in are a lot of fun. It gives Blade a different avenue to go down too. Naturally, he doesn’t trust the Bloodpack as much as they don’t trust him, or even more so. However, he proves to be a leader under fire, as evidenced by the best sequence of the film. Of course, we’re talking about the sewer scene where Blade leads the Bloodpack into the Reapers’ lair. Just like Major John Riesman, Blade dictates to his troops what the details are. Despite usually being a man of few words, Blade understands his duties as the leader and how serious this mission is, and it’s palpable. This is even the case when he talks about the riskier parts of the mission like how they are going to attrack the Reapers towards them by utilizing a device that shoots Pheromones harvested from the Reapers’ adrenal glands. After talking about how they are to use firearms to drive them back to allow them to toss in the UV grenades and eventually use Scud’s hot-wired UV bomb, Blade tells Nyssa directly that the UV grenade has a 10 second delay and to take cover. For the first time in two movies, Blade shows an understated level of concern that he didn’t even have with Karen in the first film, and the air feels different. Out of context, his attention being directed to her wouldn’t be a cause of concern, but this is a big deal for devout followers of the franchise. For the character Blade, this slightly different emotional response is enough for Whistler to note how cozy he’s getting to Nyssa.

It’s that strange for Blade to be nice for the first time to someone that Whistler comments how Blade is getting a little confused as to what side of the line he’s standing on, prompting Blade to reply, “Those are real hollow words coming from a man who just spent two years running with the enemy”. He then has to remind Whistler of the line “keep your friends close but your enemies closer” when it’s the whole point of this movie, and Whistler is offended for some reason when his questioning of Blade’s loyalty is downright audacious since Blade spent four years finding Whistler to bring him back to life when he didn’t have to. Really, it’s an unnecessary spat between the two heroes and ridiculous for Whistler to blow it out of proportion to the degree he does, especially because he sees firsthand that Blade only vibes with Nyssa and literally no one else on the team and it’s not even in a sexual manner, so there shouldn’t be a concern as to where Blade’s head is at. Even so, it does align with Blade’s stubborn characterization within the first two movies, as it is out of character for him to show concern for others, especially to a pureblood vampire. Even though Leonor Varela churns out an average performance, which seems to be a recurring theme regarding major female characters in the Blade universe, her role as Nyssa does just enough to stand out from the group and is earnest enough with her interactions with Blade that the viewer does begin to show interest in her side of the story when things dive deeper in the late second act and the larger revelations of the third act. Just like Karen in Blade, her role isn’t strong enough to warrant a return in a sequel, but it serves the purpose of Blade II‘s narrative. Regardless, another layer is added to Blade’s heroism with his natural leadership qualities in this sewer scene. As the group splits into three teams, and Chupa and Reinhardt use the opportunity to turn on Whistler and beat the shit out of him in private before Reinhardt rejoins the larger fight at hand, Blade manages to take control and never loses his confidence despite the team’s implosion under pressure.

As Lighthammer turns on Snowman because his bite finally turns him into a full Reaper and Verlaine can’t do anything other than incinerate them both by opening the manhole cover to let the sunlight in, the outnumbered Bloodpack are even smaller than they were to begin with, and they haven’t even faced the horde of Reapers yet. Then, as Reinhardt sets up the bomb pack and lets everyone know, Blade sees the pile of skulls and bones and knows they are about to face a disaster. Again, Blade shows real concern and it’s a shock considering how cool usually Blade is. However, being this leader forces him to adapt for this particular mission, as he understands his responsibilities have changed and he has to care for more than just himself and Whistler. Seeing him run over to Nyssa and Asad to yell at them to get out of the water is an eye-opener because Blade wouldn’t be showing that much anxiousness if he didn’t absolutely mean it. After the Reapers take out Asad and Blade saves Nyssa, Blade adjusts the plan and says he will attract the Reapers to himself to free her up. In just another sliver of pure badassery present in this sequel, Blade counts down the UV grenade, and the Reapers pop up at the last second just for Blade to slice them into pieces. Eventually, he rejoins Nyssa and even asks her if she’s okay, another Blade rarity, and they come together to join Reinhardt, with the three firing off at the Reapers who look like a family of rats at this point. Instead of looking for an escape route since it’s just the three of them, Blade takes it upon himself to take the rest of the Pheromones, smash them on himself, and directs the Reapers toward him to free up Reinhardt and Nyssa (“You obviously do not know who you are fucking with!”). The shot of Blade sitting himself on the giant stone and mowing the Reapers down Doom style was one of the coolest moments of the entire franchise. Seriously, the visual of it and its aftermath where he stands there with his guns is poster worthy, and his eventual finagling of the bomb lever to incinerate the Reapers makes the audience breathe a sigh of relief like they wouldn’t believe.

On top of all of this, Blade returns the favor Karen did to for him in Blade and offers his wrist to Nyssa to bite to save her from dying. If that’s not the most selfless thing a self-loathing half-breed could do in this universe, I don’t know what is.

Though Asad and Nyssa are sent as these messengers to Blade’s hideout to set up a peaceful truce in the first act, why did they initiate a fight? Asad says Blade’s people started to shoot first, which is why they reacted as such, but who the hell is he kidding? As phenomenal as the one-on-two fight scene in front of the guard lights was, it was completely unnecessary if Asad and Nyssa went in trying to broker a peace mission. What the hell was Whistler supposed to think when the two vampires broke into the hideout and set the alarm off? Why were they climbing on the ceiling like it was a stealth mission if they meant no harm? Wouldn’t the obvious reaction from the two to initiate peace talks would be to just knock on the front door, look into the security camera, and say directly that they want to speak with Blade respectfully? Do they have this little of self-awareness? Breaking in, climbing the ceiling, and jumping down to appear out of nowhere is an obvious signal to the group of world-weary vampire hunters that they are under attack, is it not? Why would they think otherwise? Again, the fight scene we got out of it was one of the best of the three movies, but it was completely avoidable if these vampires weren’t utter morons. On a side note, what was up with The Powerpuff Girls constantly being on in the background? Initially, it just seemed like an amusing thing for Scud to watch in one lone scene, but they go back to it like three times. Is there a point or some type of inside joke we aren’t privy too? Does Guillermo del Toro just really like The Powerpuff Girls and wanted to give them some attention on a worldwide level? Mojo Jojo would approve I suppose. Besides this, del Toro’s eye for his fully realized production of Blade II was on full display, as the grizzlier details of this monstrous world Blade faces had a litany of practical and special effects that brought these creatures to life in memorable and even disgusting ways. For example, the dissection of the Reaper body was something else. Though it was a great visual to explain how the Reaper strain and body works and reacts to blood even when the brain is dead, its movements are unsettling to watch to say the least.

The prosthetics of the open jaw and elongated tongue that carries the virus are insane. They calmly describe how its overdeveloped and doesn’t have a mandible bone which allows for a stronger bite while we are as uncomfortable as Scud watching it. Of course, he is the most squeamish, so the others make him be the one to squeeze the tooth of the Reaper for the paralyzing neurotoxin to come out. Then after all this and the fascination grows with each detail of what ticks with these Reapers, Nyssa cuts open the Reaper’s chest to see how different the body is from regular vampires, with the heart being encased in bone, which makes it that much harder to drive a stake through. Besides this, there is also (SPOILERS, SPOILERS, SPOILERS) Eli’s jar with a baby inside of it, as he shows the crew his insane plan to start a new race and how his son Jared was his first attempt that failed since he actually designed the Reaper strain, indicating that this whole disaster was caused by Eli himself. Thank God Whistler destroyed that object containing all the small mutant Reaper babies because that was more of an abomination than the everything in this sequel, and that’s saying something. He also stopped a modern-day crucifixion by saving Blade from Karel while those spikes were stabbed through his body on that operating table (“You didn’t give up on me. I won’t give up on you”), so he proved useful to some degree. With that being said, I will reiterate a point made in my review for the first movie that Blade fans may find controversial. As morbid as it sounds, Abraham Whistler should have been left dead. Bringing him back in this sequel lessens the emotional impact of his death on Blade himself and most of his motivation to continue in third act of the movie. Whistler also shot himself, which is the most definitive way to end a character. Not only does it not make sense for the character to somehow survive, but it makes even less logistical sense for the vampires to waste time turning Whistler, torturing him, and keeping him alive for seemingly no reason other than to torture some old man.

Considering how fearful they are of Blade and are aware of his exploits across the underground vampire nation, they would have to know who Whistler is. So, why would they purposely draw the ire of Blade by continuously torturing his mentor? They know Blade is going to come looking for them, and a majority of them run in fear at the sight of him. Why would they waste so much time to do something so senseless that has no real benefit? Transporting Whistler from Russia to Romania and wherever else seems like a real waste of time, energy, money, and resources when they could literally do everything they’re doing to a random homeless guy off the street! The lack of a satisfying explanation as to why and how Whistler survives what happened in Blade still irks me. They sort of make sense of it, but it’s just not worth the trouble and retconning of first movie to make it seem somewhat possible. In Blade II, Whistler seems like he’s there just to get his ass kicked several times over and serve as Blade’s only real weakness since Blade looks at him like a father figure. Truth be told, making Norman Reedus’s Scud the new weaponsmith moving forward should have been the move rather than having him be a part of an unneeded twist in the third act. Just like Whistler says, we were just starting to like him as Blade’s new confidant. They should have just rolled with it. With that being said, I could have went without him referring to Blade by the nickname “B”. Is Blade not short enough of a name?

For the record, Eli was an intriguing and layered antagonist. Part world-dominating tyrant and part bitch, he talks about his ultimate plan like a James Bond villain. He already sacrifices his son to test out the Reaper strain and was willing to lose Nyssa if the situation called for it (“Make no mistake Nyssa. Those blood ties mean nothing to me when measured against the ascendancy of our race. Who do you think God really favors in the web? The spider or the fly?”). He doesn’t deny sending her and her team out there to die because he doesn’t consider it important in the grand scheme of things, ignoring her when she defends Blade on two separate occasions. One is when she talked about how Blade saved her, he’s brave, and he’s honorable, and the other is when she realizes what her father Eli did and she replies, “Our enemy saved my life twice, and you have used us, your own children”, which just leads to Eli choking her. However, he completely changes his attitude when a vengeful Jared storms the place to kill him. He’s scurrying into elevators, frantically screaming at Nyssa for them to get out of there because Jared will kill them both, and he even tries to do convince Jared at the last second to join him (“If what you say is true, why does your voice tremble so?”). It’s an offbeat character. Even if the villains of the Blade franchise are more or less a mixed bag and it’s hard to say where Eli ranks among them, he is memorable. When he gets out of his one-dimensional evil vampire shell, he’s actually kind of funny too. When Whistler tries to make him look bad by pointing out Jared’s ring with their family crest on it to out him as a liar, Eli’s delivery of “I would have thought that was obvious at this point” was genuinely hilarious.

Another staple of the Blade movies is knowing when that cinematic moment comes and milking it for all its worth. Blade jumping into the vat of blood and reemerging energized like never before, beating the hell out of everyone near him, and slicing a motherfucker in half with his sword is worth watching this sequel alone. Also, how can you not absolutely love Whistler throwing Blade his sunglasses and Blade catching them without looking? This is what we come to the movies to see, people! All of this combined with the aforementioned sewer scene and the intense final battle between Blade and Jared where Jared actually does quite a bit of damage makes this strong, action-packed sequel a great follow-up that delivers on everything fans loved about the first movie while making this continuation of the story a worthwhile and captivating endeavor, leading to a bittersweet ending which encapsulates what we love about the titular character but also the trials and tribulations he faces in his tough position as a superhero in a vampire-riddled world. That final shot of Blade’s silhouette seen in front of the sun was everything. It really begs the question as to why they didn’t do everything in their power to get Guillermo del Toro back for Blade: Trinity because he did a phenomenal job building on what Stephen Norrington and Wesley Snipes did with the iconic 1998 feature.

If you loved the first movie, Blade II is an excellent sequel that doesn’t miss a beat. Along with having just as many strong action sequences, chases, and shootouts as before, the cast is better, the horrific elements are tuned up, the plot is just as captivating if not more so than before, and the CGI and effects only aid the story rather than become the focus, which is a key thing modern superhero movies fail on. It’s still riddled with issues regarding certain characters and plot developments that are either missed opportunities, needles additions or complications, or elements that aren’t as interesting past the surface, but the darker, more frightful, and atmospheric Blade II is a hell of a lot fun and delivers on its calling card in watching Wesley Snipes in the signature Blade gear save the world from these damned diabolical “suckheads”, as he lovingly puts it.