Do Over: EYG Sunday Morning Revisit Week 1

With the DailyView concluded, I am beginning one of several new features at EYG. Every Sunday morning, I will be watching a film that I had seen before, but did not like. Many of these will be loved by others and I am going to do a Do Over to see if my thoughts on the film have changed since the first viewing. It has happened several times (Seven, Fargo being two major examples). Starting on May 1st, I have revisited Guillermo Del Toro’s sequel to the Daywalker himself, Blade 2.

I really enjoyed the first Blade and I had high expectations for the movie. I remember going to see it in the theater with a bunch of my friends down in Iowa City and coming out of it very disappointed. We had spent time before playing video games, particularly a fight video game, and I could not shake the feeling that Blade 2 was nothing more than just another video game. I thought the graphics were terrible and that it looked no better than the animation in the video games that we had played prior.

Unfortunately, I felt that way still after watching it this morning. There are just so many moments that are so rubbery in the fights that it takes me completely out of the movie.

Of course, Wesley Snipes is perfect casting. He personified the character of Blade beautifully, even in the moments of this movie that I did not like.

The return of Whistler (Kris Kristofferson) was ridiculous. They just wanted him back after his impactful death in the original and I am not sure I bought how they brought him back.

Norman Reedus was there too as a Whistler-lite replacement. His story arc made no sense and was there just for the predictable swerve. Reedus does much better work in The Walking Dead and, hopefully, gets a chance to play Johnny Blaze in the MCU because that feels like perfect casting. Here…not so much.

The villains are dull and reminded me too much of the Ubervamps from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. To be fair, this movie looks to have been released before (right around the same time) the Ubervamps made their appearance on Buffy, so this is most likely coincidental.

The story was lackluster and simplistic. I did like the idea of Blade being forced to team up with the vampires to face a greater threat, but, in the end, that plotline fell apart. There were plenty of moments that made no sense. It was just included in the film because the plot needed it to be there. There was very little in way of character development.

Leonor Varela was an interesting addition to the cast as Nyssa, but she was the only one of the entire vampire team that had any personality at all. The rest were all just characters there to look cool and to get picked off. Even Ron Perlman’s Reinhardt was the bad ass that you knew eventually would face off against Blade. And then that confrontation was anticlimactic.

Overall, I did not find much more enjoyable about Blade 2 than I did the first time. I am hoping that Marvel Studios will do better with their upcoming Blade film.