Everyone's favorite day-walker is back and he's kicking some serious ass in this one. There's a new bloodsucker in town, and he's called a Reaper (think crack vampire). Now the Reaper is one bad mofo, he preys on vampires who once bitten, also turn into reapers. The vampire community isn't too thrilled with this development so they offer a truce to Blade in return for his help in vanquishing the Reaper menace.

I'm a comic book nut, I'm also a horror movie nut, so it makes sense that I would like a movie that's based on a horror comic book (c'mon now, Blade's a vampire, that's horror enough) I'll freely admit that this is an action movie with horror overtones, there I said it.

I did in fact like this movie, a lot, more so than the first Blade opus. This episode had much more of a horror note to it, the creatures were especially good and much more intimidating than anything that appeared in the first outing (no GenX MTV, X popping rave vampires here). I found the story to be more intriguing with more twists and turns than your small intestine. There was also much more gore than the first one. Buckets of blood, guts, brains, exploding bodies, impalings, you name it.

What I didn't care for, was a few parts where some CGI was thrown in for really no apparent reason other than laziness during some fight sequences. If two characters are going fisticuffs, vampires or not you really don't need CGI to enhance that, it detracts from the movie and makes it look like a video game.

Also, the ending bothered me a little bit. This movie uses traditional vampire lore; garlic, silver, stake through the heart etc. Maybe I'm not up on my vampire knowledge, but one of the vampires dies at the end in a way that puzzles me, let's just say it doesn't seem too hard to kill THIS particular vampire. Kind of screws up the vampire continuity.

All in all, a very good movie! Recommended!

9.5 out of 10 fissure-faced super vampire suckers

I'll have to disagree with the others here by saying that I liked Blade II quite a bit less than the first installment. The plot had some layers to it, which was good, but ultimately it seemed to have been written around the sequel-facilitating gimmick of "a new monster."

On the plus side, the movie looked good, the action was solid and pretty brutal, and the effects were great. A sequence in the beginning when the Reapers are first introduced was actually pretty scary and very well done. The Reapers were cool and creepy, and it was nice to see how "normal" vampires reacted to finding themselves hunted as prey. The idea of that was interesting: in effect, vampires -- the nastiest things around -- have nothing to fear but mutant versions of themselves (the Reapers, as well as Blade).

On the downside, all the empty machismo and formulaic "missions" that fueled the narrative made me not particularly care about the vampires or anyone else. (For me, this contrasted sharply with the first Blade, which was full of interesting characters.) We have the key motif of "a band of tough mercenaries/commandos-with-nicknames introduced all at once to challenge and back up an even tougher hero" -- which motif I suspect the horror genre might be better off without. (It's been a weak point in better movies than this, e.g., Land of the Dead and Alien: Resurrection, the latter of which included Ron Perlman as almost exactly the same character.) Now, I love Ron Perlman -- he's an excellent actor and also makes a great tough guy -- but, sadly, this movie required little more from him than looking tough. Leonor Varela, who plays the (stunningly beautiful) vampire/love interest, delivers a fine performance. But I was sorely disappointed in how, while she starts off as a badass who can fight even the mighty Blade to a standstill, shortly after she's revealed to be female she transforms into more of a damsel-in-distress who spends way too much time gazing up at Blade like a lost puppy. (In Blade II, it seems, gender equality is little more than an early punchline.) Wesley Snipes himself remains perfect for the role, but gone is any real sense of depth to his character.

This wasn't bad for a sequel. It was fun and nasty enough to be a good way to spend a couple of hours. Maybe my expectations were too high after the first Blade; but for a movie with as much action, dark stuff, larger-than-life characters, and wide-ranging implications as Blade II, I guess I'd've hoped for something a bit more... compelling.

6 out of 10 ouchy-bomb-things stuck to your head.