Marvel Movie Project #11 Blade II

Remember what I said a few weeks ago about sequels being tricky things?  Iron Man 2 showed us how sequels can go horribly wrong.  Blade II shows us how a sequel can build upon the foundation of its predecessor and actually exceed it.

Thanks to the fact that Blade did not suck, Blade II is able to do what every great sequel should: give you more fun with characters you already know and like.  Since the first film gave us all of the information on our principal characters and given circumstances, we can pick right back up with those characters and circumstances and get excited about what they do next.  As long as what they do next is interesting and not in conflict with what has been established (looking backwards at you IM2...).

Fortunately, Blade II delivers upon that promise.  A new breed of vampire has hit the streets and this one is a threat to both human and vampire alike.  This forces Blade to forge an extremely uneasy alliance with the vampire council in order to stop this new threat.  The nice part of a plot like this is that is puts our hero in a compromising position where he is regularly in conflict with his own principles.  He is also always in danger since his allies would also be just as happy to see him taken out.  This keeps the hero in the hot seat and puts him to the test.  Fans of Empire Strikes Back will recognize these themes.  Blade II keeps the tension high through smart pacing of the action and drama.  There are plenty of reversals, betrayals, and good old vampire smashing to keep the audience engaged until the credits roll.  Blade II is very satisfying from a storytelling standpoint.

Snipes reprises the role he defined in the previous film and is obviously very comfortable back in the trench coat.  He and Kristofferson make a dynamic pairing again and the inclusion of Scud is not as annoying as you might think, particularly as the plot thickens.  The villains are, again, very standard vampire villains and do a good job of exploding into dust when killed, exactly what you want and expect from villains in a film like this.

Blade II rises above it's predecessor because it manages to build upon the foundations of the first film while maintaining the spirit of it.  The plot is a fine-tuned and a little smarter than that of the first and manages to sneak in a few good twists.  The campiness factor is toned down a bit in this sequel, but Snipes keeps us entertained and makes Blade a fun hero to cheer for.  It's not exactly high cinema, but Blade II manages to deliver on every promise it makes and ends up being a very satisfying experience.

Aimee's Take:

Ok, I have very little to say here, other than this is a movie that exceeds the limitations of its predecessor and manages, at the same time, to recapture all the fun and excitement of the original film. Everything that was right about Blade comes back, while many of the problems--most notably the plot--are sufficiently addressed. This makes Blade II a highly satisfying effort for the franchise--although it will unfortunately remain the high note, thanks to Blade: Trinity. 

I enjoyed this film, but I'll admit right now that I don't feel qualified to comment too much more. I fell asleep during part of the late middle, and had to have Stan fill me in on what I had missed. Now, before you assume that my falling asleep was the result of poor film making, I would like to point out that during my viewing of Blade II I was suffering from early pregnancy symptoms and had no clue why I would ever fall asleep at 9pm. While I saw 90% and was able to argue for a good ranking, I can't feel comfortable railing or praising the way I usually do. It doesn't help that this movie is just quietly satisfying, without anything too annoying (like Ryan Reynolds, for example.)

Since Stan has it covered, here are two adorable cats: 

Marvel Movie Project #18: Blade Trinity

Blade Trinity feels like a spin-off movie with the Blade character appearing only as a cameo.  That is about how involved Blade and I are in this movie.  It is no surprise to read the trivia on this film and find out that Wesley Snipes was seriously pissed about the direction of this movie and his lack of involvement, frankly so am I.  As we will get into a little further up the list, Wesley Snipes is the most likeable thing in the Blade franchise, and he needs to be.  So when you make a Blade movie and you marginalize the best aspect of the series, you are setting yourself up for a problem.

Aimee will take up the dissection, perhaps evisceration, of Ryan Reynolds, but suffice to say that he is miserable and ruins the film pretty much single-handedly.   The rest of the performances of the "supporting" cast are equally forgettable and dismissed.  Jessica Biel is likeable enough, but not enough to carry the film or make a troubled plot and script enjoyable.

The other big problem is that after Blade II, the stakes were raised so high that finding a new vampiric menace for Blade to combat becomes next to impossible.  This latest threat is beyond comprehension and requires more suspension of disbelief than should really be expected of the audience.  Not to ruin it for you, but apparently Blade, armed with a vampire killing virus, must go after THE Dracula.  There are plot twists, but they are either too predictable or they fail to twist sufficiently to keep the film interesting.  The Nightstalkers sub-plot steals too much of the spotlight and as mentioned above, Blade is so marginalized that it is barely his story at all.  Never mind the miserable vampire serum plot or the complex vampire lineage that we are supposed to follow from Dracula down to the modern day vamps, this movie somehow tries to do so much and succeeds at doing so little.

It is no surprise that the Blade franchise dies with this film.  Snipes is enjoyable as always, but due to his lack of screen time is unable to salvage the last hurrah from this series.  As a matter of fact, both Snipes and Kristofferson are very likeable and have the chemistry that made the first two movies so much better than this one.  It is everything else that makes Blade Trinity #18 on this list.

Aimee's Take

My loving husband is, as usual, quite astute in summing up why a movie doesn't really work. I agree with him entirely. I'll even go so far as to say I liked Jessica Biel's role in this film, and I'll go so far as to say that Wesley Snipes is enjoyable, as always, in this film. All the problems Stan pointed out are too much, though. There just isn't enough Blade.

Now to eviscerate Ryan Reynolds. 

I've seen him around for years. He's got that look; could be wholesome like a boy next door, could be the boyfriend who is secretly controlling, or could just be a miserable smart-mouthed asshole. He could be all three. 

He's not particularly suited for "hero" roles, which is why it's bizarre to see him in so many. He's really best suited to be the jerk-off terrible boyfriend that the ingénue dumps at the last second for the friendly, cardboard "good guy". He does seem rather well-suited to be Deadpool, but I hate Deadpool almost as much as I hate Ryan Reynolds. There's no reason for either to exist, other than to make me sad.

Ryan Reynolds plays his role as "Hannibal" about as well as you'd expect. He has all the wit and timing of your drunk Uncle Larry at Thanksgiving, rolling right through obviously bad one-liners, one after another, never stopping for breath or laughter. It isn't necessary to pause for laughter, because nothing he ever says is funny.

That's pretty much how this character is played. He's the snarky, "witty" comic relief in a movie that really needs none. Given the general lack of Blade in this film, we wind up with the comic stylings of Ryan Reynolds pretty often, leaving me to wonder when the real relief will come. As in, when are they going to kill him? 

But they don't. They want to spin this shit off into a Ryan Reynold's vampire wise-cracking fest. Luckily for everyone, this movie looked bad and was bad, and there was no reason to ever put Ryan Reynolds in a movie again. At least, not into a movie anyone would voluntarily watch. And all was right with the world.

Plus this movie has this horrible bitch, who is actually Parker Posey, an actual actress who may not stink entirely, but who manages to be worse than Ryan Reynolds, AND in also in most of his scenes. The end.