Oh does Wesley Snipes (The Art of War) look good as Blade, or as the vampires like to call him, day walker, in the movie Blade II. He is pumped up with an attitude and ready for action. For those that love a good vampire flick, this one adds a kick. The vampires are no longer top of the food chain, they now have something even more indestructible to contend with.  Blade is a vampire/human born this way. He has all the strengths of a vampire, and none of their weaknesses, hence day walker. He hates vampires and has made it his life’s mission to destroy them. Whistler (Kris Kristofferson of The Planet of the Apes) helped him, oh about 20 years ago, lose the ‘hunger.’  This hunger is his only weakness, and through a serum he injects daily it keeps the vampire virus at bay. The end of the first Blade movie, Whistler was bitten and Blade couldn’t bring himself to kill him.

In the sequel Blade is hunting vampires, but he is also hunting Whistler and about two years have elapsed. His new partner for kewl weapons is Scud (Norman Reedus of 8MM). Two ninja like vampires break into Blade’s warehouse wearing what looks like wetsuits and ultra violet goggles to protect themselves from light. They looks like giant flies. They are delivering a truce. Nyssa (Leonor Varela of The Tailor of Panama) is the daughter of a very old and powerful leader of the vampire nation and she needs Blade’s help in dealing with the newest of predators. Blade accompanies them back to their headquarters to hear what they have to say, and no he is not a dope, he knows they will screw him over. He just wants to get in deeper than he has ever been. What we learn is there is a creature hunting vampires, only after they are bitten they don’t die. They are infected and become one of them. Only to survive they need to feed almost hourly. They can’t be decapitated, they don’t die with silver or garlic and their heart is encased in bone. So how do you kill one of those things?. . . I’ll never tell.  Why would Blade help his enemy hunt his enemy, good question? Because what happens when they run out of vampires? They will turn to humans and soon the whole world will be one nasty blood-craving monster.

Helping Blade destroy this thing is an elite vampire team that has been training for two years. Training to destroy Blade. First is Reinhardt (Ron Perlman of Enemy at the Gates, though you might remember him as the beast in the television show Beauty and the Beast only he is sans the hair). There is Chupa (Matt Schulze of The Fast and the Furious), Snowman (Donnie Yen of Highlander: Endgame) Lighthammer (Daz Crawford of The World Is Not Enough) and Priest (Tony Curran of Pearl Harbor). The creature supposedly was born with this anomaly, as was Blade, is Nomak (Luke Goss). Blade II was directed by Guillermo del Toro and writing credits go to Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan. There are wonderful special effects, a shit load of action, and boux coup vampires die. There is even an Arnoldesque I’ll be back type scenario. Blade II offers it all (except a naked Wesley Snipes) so I give it a nine. Oh come on, when can a horror flick score a 10?

Last updated: Thursday, March 20, 2008 02:47:53 AM

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