Blade II

Starring Wesly Snipes, Ron Perlman, Kris Kristopherson, and Norman Reedus

Directed by Guillermo Del Toro

My first ever world premiere, and I haven’t gotten around to writing the review for more than a week. Regardless, this flick kicked some serious mutant vampire ASS! I highly recommend it if you have a little anger management issue or two, if you love goth-chicks and bloody B-horror-movie monsters and hip-hop/metal crossovers and tattoos. In the second installment of what is hopefully a great series of flicks, Blade (Snipes), a half-human/half-vampire hunter of the undead scum who killed his mother and turned her into a bloodsucker returns with a vengeance. First, he tracks and frees his old partner form the clutches of Vampirism, which is apparently a lot less supernatural than we all thought. In this, the guys in the Blade camp distance themselves from other recent Vampire movies (see the review below) but also take some of the horror and suspense out of the bad guys. No matter, because after rescuing Whistler (Kristopherson), Blade is approached by his enemies with an offer of truce and a request to help them hunt and destroy a mutated strain of nightcrawler that is feeding on the normal, fun-loving, neck-chewing pierced and tattooed vamps of eastern Europe. For everyone who worried that in the Post-Matrix era there would never be another really great martial arts fight scene again, worry no more. Here, the special effects steal the show (which in a flick like this is how it should be) and then steal it again and again and again. Truly an eye-popper, never a dull moment, and I can’t wait to get a crew of folks together to dress up like Balde and his squad of vampire commandos for Halloween next year. Anyone interested, let me know. Until then, 4 cell phones, take a big group of friends and cheer out loud in the theater, everyone else will be.