Of Vampires, Reapers, and bad arsed mofos!!
Bought Blade II last night. I missed this at the theatre.
For the people who have not seen Blade II I have many spoilers. So stop reading and go out and rent Blade II if: You like bloodl; like mucho martial arts.
That said, Blade II is a pretty standard plot. Blade kills suckheads. Suckheads have been trying to kill Blade. Come up with the Bloodpack, Reinheart, Nyssa, Asad, Snowman, Lighthammer, Valarient(sp), Priest, and Chupa. Uhm to quote the Crow: "..Jolly pirate nicknames!!"
MMkay. Anyway, after searching long and hard for his mentor Whistler, Blade is propositioned to fight with the Bloodpack against a new and deadlier enemy, the Reapers. OOh goody! Tension! Blade has to watch his back now too. But more on that later..
First, I liked this movie, mucho arse kicking.
Blade/Snipes. The man has got some skills. Apparently he's been studying some african martial arts for the past 10 or so years. I doubt he could beat Donnie Yen in a real fight, but at least viusally it's good. Ooh and he has a damn fine body to boot!
The Bloodpack. I like the thought that the Vamps were busy during the two years between Blade and BII.
Snowman/Donnie Yen. This guy kicks some arse, briefly. Which sucks. He should have been made more of. However his comments in the Special Features tell you why he wasn't.
The fight choeography is very well done.
Second, what I hated about this movie.
Whistler/Kristofferson. I like him. Always have. But why bring him back? All he did was stand around and get his arsed kicked again and again and again..etc. I can see it now, hey Kris we want you back for BII. Yeah? what the **** for? Uhm, we need a punching bag and some one to go with all the hillbilly jokes we piled on the script!! Well why the mother ****er didn't you ****ing mother ****ing say so!! And there you have Kristoferson's whole script.
Some of the CGI was obvious. The fight between Nyssa/Asad and Blade.
In the special features del Toro was going on about how Blade's fighting style was very street and not a ballet type favoured by Hong Kong action movies. He was going on about how he didn't want to get intot he whole CTHD wire fu bit. Yet there is a lot of wire work done on this movie...???!!??
About 5 minutes into the movie I knew that Nomak was made by Damaskinos, and that Scud was the plant.
Blade hates vampires. yet he apprently has feelings enough for Nyssa that he holds her close several times..??!?? Bah, kill the biatch and get to part III.
Blade II print on DVD sucks. Artifacing everywhere. Saturday, I watched Blade and marveled at the print. Blade's all black outfit was just that, black. Smooth and unlined. Check out the fight in the Bloodbath. When the meat is crawling along the floor and comes to Blade's boots, the camera pans up to Blade's chest and head. Look at his chest armour. Not a ripple, not a line. just smooth black leather. That is how a movie should be done. And you'd think that sine 1998 there would be no movie on DVD that has artifacing but damn. Even when they are showing the New Line Cinema logo there is blue artifacing! Yuck! I know I know, some of you will say it's equipment. But no, not when you have a bad arsed tv like the Sony Vega and a pretty damn fine DVD player using component outs. Boo on New Line.
Also, New Line sucks for putting all the features on two separate disks. I mean they got Blade packed on one disk with tons of junk..there was nothing special about BII's features that warrented another disk..whatever.
Del Toro dropped the ball in having Nyssa and Asad fight Blade in the beginning. He should have had Snowman/Yen and Nyssa fighting. I was hoping beyond hope to see those two go at it.
The Bloodpack, I know, I said I liked them. Nyssa, Snowman, Lighthammer and Chupa were all cool, but Priest, Asad and the Lighthammer's **** buddy Veralaint Valiant verbooten..whatever her name was were pretty much fodder and I was easily able to predict when they died.
Ok, lets establish that the Reapers are immune to Silver and garlic, but still can't do UV or light. Fine. I can go for that. Yet why in the sewers is Blade, Reinheart, and Nyssa blwowing the away tons of Reapers with, gasp guns with silver bullets???? What did I miss???
Overall, great movie, bad DVD.
