Video/DVD Review: Blade II
What Parents Should Know
Parents need to know that this movie has intense gore, which
falls just on this side of a slasher film. All kinds of
decapitations, bloodletting, tracheotomies, etc., are inflicted
on various human-like beings. Although the vampires combust in
a cloud of sparks when killed, it comes too late to avoid
seeing brains, hearts and tendons, and oceans of blood. Blade,
at one point, gets strapped to an impalement table, which
shoots spikes through various limbs and organs. There is also a
scene of horrible vampire self-mutilation. Even by action-movie
standards, it is very graphic. Characters use strong language
and there are sexual situations. Interestingly, in the original
Blade, the vampires were a rainbow nation of evil with many
different ethnic groups represented, but in Blade II, there are
two ethnic vampires on Blade's hit-squad, but none in the crowd
scenes, or as antagonists.
- Families can talk about the movie's themes of betrayal and loyalty. For what it's worth, Blade is a black superhero. He calls the shots, is never condescended to, and shows loyalty, courage and integrity. Parents may want to discuss the nature of wish-fulfillment, and the way violence and problem-solving are conflated in the movies versus the way they interact in real life.
Half-vampire Blade (Wesley Snipes) is back in this sequel about the Marvel Comics superhero. When last we left our hero, his mentor and gunsmith Whistler (Kris Kristofferson) has been vampirized, abducted by the undead, and held suspended in a blood-support tank to endure eternal torture. With the help of his new idea-man, Blade breaks Whistler out, and cures him of the vampire virus with an injection and a 24 hour dry-out program. Meanwhile, a mutant super-vampire sneaks into a corrupt Czech blood bank, and eats the vampire-phlebotomists with his daringly different super-vampire bloodsucking anatomy. The waxy emperor is forced to offer a truce to Blade, in order to fight their mutual enemy. But it is immediately clear that the truce can only be temporary.
An ordinary sequel to the first Wesley Snipes vehicle, this bloody punch-fest lacks the charming antagonists that livened the original movie. Snipes is occasionally funny, though not as often as he should be. Most of the rest of the cast is not funny, except Ron Perlman, re-doing his lovable thug routine (Cronos, Alien Resurrection) as an evil vampire hitman.
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