In 1998, audiences were caught off-guard by the release of Blade. The film managed to gross over $70 million despite several factors that worked against its success: a lack of any substantial advertising campaign, a spring release (instead of the horror movie's traditional Halloween), and, perhaps most damning of all, a basis in comicbooks.

While Joel Schumaker was busy dragging Batman films deeper into a "Biff! Bam! Pow!" mass-merchandising neon abyss, Blade crept into theatres without much hype, and without even any outward indication that it was a comicbook film. Instead of a cape and cowl, Blade took to the streets (and the screens) with a trenchcoat and sunglasses. The garrish colors were replaced with a palette of blacks inky enough to make a squid jealous.

Now the hero is back in Blade II. Set in the crumbling city centers of Eastern Europe, Blade II still features the titular half-vampire, half-human "Daywalker" fighting the forces of bloodsucking evil. Only this time, there's a new enemy: a race known as Reapers has emerged, preying upon human and vampire alike. Faced with a predator stronger than they are, the vampires are forced to turn to Blade for assistance.

In order to take on the Reapers, Blade is given charge of a vampire commando team known as the Bloodpack. Formerly headed by clean-pated Reinhardt (Ron Perlman), the group is a fairly standard "diverse" mixture--there's the Big Guy (Daz Crawford), the Quiet Girl (Marit Velle Kile), Martial Arts Guy (Donnie Yen), the Hot-Head (Matt Schulze), and the Drunk (Tony Curran), none of whom get much to do in the film other than stand around and look menacing. The team is joined by two vampire emissaries (Leonor Varela and Danny John-Jules), plus Blade's technical support Whistler (Kris Kristopherson, returning from the first film) and Scud (Norman Reedus).

While most of the Bloodpack is forgettable, or at best interchangable, Perlman manages to not only stand out, but give what could be a one-note performance at least a bit of heart. His best moments come when he's trading verbal jabs with either Blade or Whistler, but he always manages to give the sense that he's bristling under Blade's command. We like Reinhardt in the way that only the best protagonists deserve--we don't want anything bad to happen to him, if only so our hero can do him in himself.

Blade II owes much to its cinematic predecessors: the evil vampire Reapers resemble nothing so much as F.W.Murnau's Nosferatu, complete with chalky white skin, pointed ears, and menacing mouths; the plot (the first two-thirds of it, at least) could easily pass for Aliens; and Blade himself is as much John Shaft as Abraham VanHelsing.

Wesley Snipes' Blade is the untouchable blacksploitation hero's modern incarnation. There is no enemy he cannot overcome, no woman he cannot woo. Whether facing down an army of monsters or riot-gear-clad security guards, he barely breaks a sweat. He's prepared for every contingency, and is always two steps ahead of his enemies. But he does have weaknesses; he's not a perfect hero.

Blade himself remains as unsure of his place in the world of humans and vampires as he was in the first picture. He dispatches both with graceful abandon, but is also drawn to members of both species as his family. He finds his loyalties torn and tested as he fights (amidst recriminations from both sides) alongside the enemy he so long despised.

The real saving grace of Blade II is the attention paid to the fight scenes. This is, after all, just as much an action film as it is horror, and the battles are arguably the best ever seen in an American production. While most actors (and even stuntmen) learn choreography for their fight scenes, Wesley Snipes actually has a black belt in capoeira, a Brazilian martial art that focuses on upper body strength to carry out some dynamic gymnastics. His skills give a sense of realism to fantastic events.

When Snipes is actually present, the fights are a superb blend of swordsmanship, gunplay, akido and even professional wrestling; however, when special effects enter into the fray, the quality dips a little. Fully rendered characters sometimes stick out obviously, but these are only brief moments in larger scenes, and the transitions between live action and cgi (or puppets) are seamless.

Director Guillermo del Toro is intelligent enough to understand how to play on our fears to create a scare, rather than tired Resident Evil-style set pieces. He gives the play between light and dark (and their effect on the characters) more of a role in Blade II, and even acknowledged the film's comicbook roots by having Tim Bradstreet and Mike Mignola on to help with character and set designs.

Blade II is the newest entry in that rarest category of sequel--the one which surpasses its predecessor. Just like the title character, the film belongs to two races: 1) a movie with a message about family, trust, and the role of science in our lives, and 2) a thuggish action flick. And again, just like Blade himself, the film walks a fine line between the two, shying away from neither and delivering the best of both.

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The dvd for the original Blade was well put together, with terrific audio and video quality and a nice selection of extras. Blade II is a two-disc set that takes the standard a bit further.

For a movie that overwhelmingly dark, characters, costumes, and sets remain distinct. All the elements maintain their crisp detail, making the picture really pop. The scenes with one saturated color--blue, yellow or, of course, red--were vivid without being blocky or "smearing" onto the dark areas.

The set features animated menus, which manage to both look nice and run short enough that you won't grow tired of sitting through them whenever you want to watch the film. Everything is easy to navigate, with even subsections of special features having their own index. You can get to everything you want via menu selections, with no cute little puzzles or games. Well, okay, there is one easter egg, but you can get to all the main content through the menus.

The bonus content begins with two full-length commentaries: the first from director Guillermo Del Toro and producer Peter Frankfurt, and the second with Wesley Snipes and writer David S. Goyer. Both commentaries are worth a listen, with a mixture of humor, insight, and behind the scenes detail. All four men are enjoying themselves just enough to keep the two-hour conversations from becoming dry or tiring, but remain focused on giving us the facts about the production. Disc One also allows you to play the film sans dialogue with an isolated score.

Disc Two houses the majority of the special features. The largest is 'The Blood Pact,' an 83-minute "making of" documentary that features interviews with Del Toro, Snipes, Goyer, and many others. There is a huge amount of footage shot on the Prague sets, and in-depth information on every aspect of production, from story creation and costume design to special effects and scoring. There is branching material (rather like The Matrix's "Follow the White Rabbit" feature) that probes deeper into select topics.

There are three Visual Effects featurettes: "Synthetic Stuntmen" discusses the creation of the digital doubles used for some of the more complex stunts and the development of "L-Cam" ("Liberated Camera," a technique used to blend directly from live actors to their electronic copies and back again, which was pioneered here and used extensively for Marvel's next movie, Spider-Man); "The Digital Maw" opens wide the process of creating creature effects for the film, both digitally and with puppets; "Progress Reports" lets us in on more than 50 minutes of video that makeup designer Steve Johnson used to keep Del Toro updated on the creation of the film's look.

"Scene Breakdowns" dissects six sequences from the film, letting you view and compare the original script, shooting script, storyboards/FX breakdowns, final scene and "on set" production footage. "Notebooks" provides excerpts from the director's and script supervisor's... well, notebooks. For the most part, the text is illegible, but Del Toro did a lot of sketching in his, fleshing out ideas for costumes, characters, and sets.

There are 16 selections in "Deleted Scenes," running about 25 minutes. There's even optional commentary with Del Toro and Frankfurt, which is just as amusing and informative as the 'regular' commentary. Similarly, "Unfilmed Script Pages" is just what it sounds like, covering three scenes that never were.

The "Art Gallery" gives us several categories from which to select: "Sequence Concepts", "Props and Weapons", "Costume Design", "Set Design", "Character Design" and "Storyboards".

The disc is wrapped up with two trailers, cast and crew bios, a three-minute ad for the Blade II videogame, and a quite fun Cypress Hill video.

With interviews, commentaries, and features galore, the New Line Platinum Series presentation of Blade II is one you can sink your teeth into.


Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age