FILM REVIEW - BLADE TWO
It's good to see the sequel to this finally came out, Snipes at one point, asked how long it's
been replies "Too long', and it does seem forever since he was here. That said, for a lot of good stuff, the sequel is not up to the standards of its predecessor.
The story seems too linear and straight forward. Finding out who the traitor is comes as no big surprise, too much time is wasted on explaining events from the first film, and the chief villain seems rather tame for a full blown Nosferatu. Snipes seems to give in too easily to the initial ninja attack advances by the
vampires who wish to ally themselves with him. The final tender lovers tragedy moment of the lady vampire melting in his arms in the rising Sun looks frankly silly, and there are few real scares here. The fight scenes sometimes look cartoonish,
especially when over-speeded up to the point where you expect the Benny Hill theme to kick in. Matrix it ain't.
The Reapers are a great creation though, especially with their gross out David Cronenberg style mouth pieces, and the guessing game as to whether Kristofferson's character has fully recovered or not is well handled at first, but later abandoned.
The dark humour is terrific, especially the London final when Blade finally goes after a vampire he let go so much earlier i the film with the line "You didn't think I'd forgotten about you, did you."
Rhinehard, the meanest of the vampire goon squad, and the one most blatantly out to get Blade is very well handled, and looks like a Caucasian version of Blade, - he oozes menace, treachery and strength very neatly.
The family tragedy between Father, daughter and son (chief reaper) is neatly resolved, wisely without Blade getting involved until it is concluded and he has to save the heroine only to lose her again, and the way the vampires dissolve, like a volcanic meltdown of sparking incendiary fury is very colourful, but somehow it seems weak compared tot he ultra-coolness of the first outing. It's still good enough to have me longing for 3 though.
Arthur Chappell