Review By Paul Mount, 3 out of 5
Stephen Norrington’s original BLADE movie, starring Wesley Snipes as the leather-clad, mean’n-moody half-undead hi-tech vampire slayer, was one of the great high-octane, adrenaline-fuelled action movies of the late 1990s. There were high hopes for Guillermo Del Toro’s sequel. What a disappointment. It’s not that it’s a bad film, of course it isn’t. It’s just a bit bland and uninvolving. Part of this must be due to the fact that virtually all the protagonists are monsters. Here Blade has to team up with a group of vampires who are themselves being preyed upon by the Reapers, a new breed of super-vampire. As the Reapers are led by Nomak (played by former Bros teen idol Luke Goss) they’re probably right to be afraid. The problem is there’s no human interest, no real underdog to root for amidst all the carnage and blood-letting. Some vampires are in danger from other vampires? Ok…er, so what? Much of the film takes place in the dark, in sewers or undergound tunnels and lairs. There’s no humanity here and, contrary to Del Toro’s intentions, the film just ain’t scary despite the hideous Reaper vampires and all the CGI and tons of blood. It’s a cold and remote movie with little of the pulse-pounding excitement of the original. BLADE by numbers, in fact.
THE DISCS: This 2-disc set shows what can be achieved with the DVD format. Commentaries abound, there’s an exhaustive (if not exhausting) 83 minute ‘making of’ documentary which tells you probably more than you need to know about the making of any film. Twenty-odd minutes of deleted scenes – including one interesting sequence where Whistler (Kris Kristofferson, ludicrously resurrected in the film itself) meets a young Blade for the first time – press information, trailers, music video etc. Hours of stuff and probably far more than the film itself really deserves.
