Blade II

Dir: Guillermo del Toro

2002

****

1998’s Blade was a risk of New Line Cinema and an important test subject for Marvel Studios. It was a hit – and every hit needs a follow up. New Line and Marvel got to work on a sequel right away, hiring David S. Goyer once more to write the script. In the most ridiculous career choice of all time, Stephen Norrington, director of the first film, turned down the offer to direct the sequel. Rubbish for him, but brilliant for everyone else, as New Line production president Michael De Luca decided to hire Guillermo del Toro as his replacement. Goyer and producer Peter Frankfurt both admired director Guillermo del Toro and believed his dark sensibilities to be ideal for Blade II. Frankfurt first met del Toro when Frankfurt's design company, Imaginary Forces, did the title sequences for Mimic. "I admired Mimic and got to know Guillermo through that film," says Frankfurt. "Both David Goyer and I have been fans of his since Cronos and were enthusiastic about him coming on board. Guillermo is such a visual director and has a very strong sense of how he wants a movie to look. When you sign on with someone like Guillermo you're not going to tell him what the movie should look like, you're going to let him run with it." Like Goyer, del Toro has a passion for comic books. "Guillermo was weaned on comic books, as was I," says Goyer. "I was a huge comic book collector... my brother and I had about twelve thousand comic books that we assembled when we were kids, so I know my background." It was the perfect marriage, with Del Toro keeping it dark but intensifying the comic-book feel to the story. Del Toro chose not to alter the script too much from the ideas created by Goyer and Snipes. "I wanted the movie to have a feeling of both a comic book and Japanese animation," said the director. " I resurrected those sources and viewed them again. I dissected most of the dailies from the first movie; I literally grabbed about four boxes of tapes and one by one saw every single tape from beginning to end until I perfectly understood where the language of the first film came from. I studied the style of the first one and I think Norrington used a tremendous narrative style. His work is very elegant." Stepping back into Blade's shoes was a challenge Wesley Snipes relished. "I love playing this role. It's fun as an actor to test your skills at doing a sequel, to see if you can recreate something that you did,". Years later, after the third Blade film, Snipes openly admitted that Blade II was by far his favourite of the three movies. I think everyone agrees and the film was a success. The story takes place two years after the events of Blade, a pandemic known as the "Reaper virus" has spread through the vampire community. Infected vampires are turned into 'Reapers', a mutation of vampires, immune to all vampire weaknesses with the exception of ultraviolet light, who kill humans and turn any vampires they feed on into more Reapers. Unable to contain the Reapers, Vampire Lord Eli Damaskinos (Thomas Kretschmann) sends two emissaries, Asad (Red Dwarf’s Danny John-Jules) and his daughter Nyssa (Leonor Varela), to seek the aid of vampire hunter Blade and his team, consisting of weaponsmith Abraham Whistler (Kris Kristofferson reprising his role) and Blade's new assistant Scud (Norman Reedus). Blade has since recovered Whistler, who had been held captive and tortured by the group of vampires for 2 years (since the end of the previous film). Whistler had been turned into a vampire by them, and after returning to their headquarters, Blade gives Whistler an anti-virus vampire serum to revert him back to human. After meeting with Damaskinos and his human familiar, lawyer Karel Kounen, they cautiously agree to help due to the danger of the Reapers' uncontrollable hunger and rapid mutation. Asad then introduces Blade and his group to The Bloodpack; a group of vampires trained for the sole purpose of killing Blade. In addition to Asad and Nyssa, The Bloodpack consists of Reinhardt (Ron Perlman), Chupa (Matt Schulze), Snowman (Donnie Yen), Verlaine (Marit Velle Kile), her lover Lighthammer (Darren Crawford), and Priest (Tony Curran). To keep them in line and after Reinhardt's racially charged remark, Blade humiliates Reinhardt and plants an explosive charge on the back of Reinhardt's head. On Blade's advice, the team starts by investigating a Prague located nightclub frequented by vampires. When they do encounter Reapers, they soon discover their weapons and powers are completely ineffective. Blade is forced to kill Priest after he becomes infected, Lighthammer is wounded (and infected but he keeps this to himself), Whistler deserts his post, and Scud barely survives a Reaper attack by using UV lights to scare them off. Jared Nomak (Luke Goss of Bros. fame), 'Patient Zero' of the Reaper strain, attacks and nearly kills Blade before a burst of sunlight forces him to retreat. Whistler appears, and says he has been tracking the Reapers to a central nest in the sewers. The dissection of a Reaper corpse which was trapped by an electronic hatch reveals that most Reapers tend to burn out within twelve hours if they do not feed, as well as having an additional layer of bone, which surrounds and protects their heart. Having learned of this 'Achilles heel', prime weakness, he and Scud create UV projectors for the team. While searching for the nest, Lighthammer succumbs to the infection, killing Snowman and chasing Verlaine up a manhole ladder before both die of light exposure when Verlaine removes the manhole cover. Chupa turns on Whistler and attacks him, only to die when a group of Reapers attracted to his scent tear him apart. Whistler survives an encounter with Nomak only because he reveals the truth of his condition and situation to Whistler so he can inform Blade. Asad is ambushed, dragged underwater, and killed. Using a special UV emitter bomb pack, Blade kills all of the Reapers with the exception of Nomak and rescues Reinhardt and Nyssa, but is betrayed by Damaskinos and his people, who stun Blade unconscious. After Damaskinos' betrayal, he reveals that he created The Reaper virus in order to create a new race of vampires based on Blade and that Nomak is in fact his son. Scud turns out to be a familiar loyal to Damaskinos, who also works with Reinhardt. Blade turns the table on Scud, saying he always knew of Scud's true allegiance, and kills him with the bomb he had placed on Reinhardt, earlier. Damaskinos then orders his scientists to dissect Blade so they can learn how to replicate his abilities. After escaping his captors, Whistler brings Blade to a blood pool, where he regains enough strength to kill Reinhardt and his men. Seeking revenge, Nomak tracks Damaskinos to his private heliport and kills him. He then bites Nyssa, infecting her with the virus while drinking her blood. Blade confronts Nomak, and after a ferocious battle, defeats him. With his now-broken sword, Blade stabs it through the side of Nomak's chest and into his bone-protected heart, slipping it through the bone plates on the side. Nomak then commits suicide to end his suffering by shoving the sword all the way into his wounded heart. Fulfilling Nyssa's dying wish, Blade takes her outside, where she dies while watching the sun rise before she can fully change. The movie ends with Blade in London, where he kills Rush, a vampire he encountered earlier in the movie. It is a vast improvement on the first film, with loads of fun new characters. Any film is improved by having Ron Perlman in it and it was a great surprise to see Danny John-Jules in a big Hollywood action film. The casting of Luke Goss as a villain is the decision that had most Brits worried but he was really good – worlds away from his boy-band persona of the 1980s. Marvel knew after Blade II that they could succeed and repeat the process, they dropped the ball with the third installment but still, they knew they were onto something and their characters could work on the big screen. The other thing we have to thank Blade II for is the confidence it gave Del Toro to make Hellboy. It was clearly on his mind and if you look carefully he even hints as much by making Scud wear a T-shirt featuring the logo of the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense, a reference to Mike Mignola's Hellboy comic. Two years later, Hellboy was made, featuring Ron Pearlman in the lead role. Blade II is a great superhero/vampire/comic-book movie and still stands up against some of the better MCU films today. It’s just such a shame they made such a mess of Blade III.