Studio: New Line Productions, Inc.
Director: Guillermo Del Toro
Screenwriter: David S. Goyer
Starring: Wesley Snipes, Kris Kristofferson, Ron Perlman, Leonor Varela, Norman Reedus, Luke Goss, Matt Schulze
Genre: Horror/Fantasy
MPAA Rating: R for strong pervasive violence, language, some drug use, and sexual content

The Story: Wesley Snipes reprises the role of Blade, a half-human, half-vampire comic book hero. The movie starts with his rescue of Whistler (Kristofferson) from a band of vampires, then turns into an homage to the Dirty Dozen when Blade is asked to lead a band of vampires against an even worse enemy: Jared Nomak (Goss). Nomak is a Reaper - a mutated strain of vampire that is immune to everything but ultraviolet light. The Reapers are hideous creatures with a truly disgusting feeding mechanism, and unfortunately for vampires, a Reaper bite is not fatal, but transforming. Its an unusual twist on the plague meta-story.

The more interesting conflict, though, comes from Blade's interaction with the Bloodpack, a vampire Special Forces team trained to hunt Blade himself. Led by Reinhardt (Perlman), the Bloodpack reluctantly takes orders from Blade. But as in any situation where enemies are forced together by circumstance, treachery abounds. Reinhardt and Chupa (Matt) turn on Whistler the first chance they get. Blade discovers that the entire group is nothing more than a Judas goat, bait in a larger scheme cooked up by the vampire leader Damaskinos (Thomas Kretzschmann). Tension is also added by Blade's understated attraction to Nyssa (Varela), who is Damaskinos's daughter and a member of the Bloodpack. The romance is downplayed, though, and appropriately so.

UMSFC Review: Anyone looking for a serious movie will be seriously disappointed. This is a bloody romp. The special effects are spectacular, particularly the Reapers and their gaping maws. The movie looks more like a comic book than the first one did, and the use of amber-lit nights and blue-lit days is a subtle means of orienting the viewer to the vampire world, where day is night and night is day.

Snipes gives the audience a less bleak Blade this time around, and Kristofferson seems to be having more fun, too. Norman Reedus is delightful as the scuzzy Scud, and Ron Perlman's Reinhardt is urbanely demented. Matt does hulking menace beautifully - Chupa is fierce and hostile. Matt makes Chupa unsympathetic to the point that you don't really feel sorry for him when he meets a fate worse than death, yet there is also a moment when you can see Chupas sense of honor and courage. The fact that no one realized that Matt was in the first Blade until after he had been cast is an indication of his ability to be a chameleon, which is essential for any actor to be truly successful.