Blade II

[BlackAngel]

I just watched this movie today, and it was good.  It didn't p**s me off in any way (story notwithstanding).  The fight seen were great, but a little over the top, especially the final fight with that main reaper.  All that hitting, 60 ft. high elbow drops, throwing each other around like rag dolls and Blade's shades never left his face, not even a crack (the director must have seen the final fight of Black Mask).

[Mofo Rising]

Yeah, I really liked BLADE 2.  But I've got somewhat mainstream tastes.

I was impressed that they got away with so much gore in a mainstream release.  It's like they tried to figure out how many ways they could dismember the human body and ran with it.

For my money, this is much more of a straight-up horror movie than the first was.  The first was mostly action, the second was horror.  It was almost gothic in it's view of family horror.

But I've already heard dissenters on this very board, so take what you will.

In fact, the parts I disliked the most were the parts where they lightened up the movie.  At times Blade seemed like he was having fun.  I've read several critics reviews where they chastised the first film for not being "fun".  That's what I liked about the first film.  It took itself seriously.  In so many genre films today that constantly poke fun at their own conventions it was refreshing to see one that took itself seriously.  That was "fun" to me.

I don't know.  I hate critics.

[carl thomas]

I agree with you. I can only add when I saw this movie at 11 pm (showing), there were some strange people in attendance. Not Goth but just strange brooding people that gave off rather cold vibes??  It also is of interest how the scene where Blade cuts himself to feed The Girl Vampire was played with the same type of music and framing that would be the case for a normal unselfish act???   kind of sad, kind of sick !

[AkiraTubo]

Blade was boring.

Blade II had sloppy characterization and a lame plot.  But at least it wasn't boring.  I liked that final fight.  It wasn't too stylized, just two super-strong dudes beating the s**t out of each other.

[J.R.]

I think I know how they got away with the gore: Most of the gruesome deaths were vampires. I went into this film expecting some serious bloodshed but most of the graphic stuff was shown as vampires' flesh burned off their corpses. For whatever reason the ratings board is fine with showing aliens, zombies and otherworldly things graphically disected, or they'll allow the same for humans as long as it's humorous. Yet when a film deals with violence in an honest, uncompromising way that's too extreme. Strange.

[Mofo Rising]

Well, I guess there's something to film teachers discussing horror films as sort of carnival houses of terror.  If you go in with zombies and vampires and the like, it's at least one step removed from reality.  So when you see all the blood and gore, it's still disgusting, but it doesn't really crawl inside your mind because you can always dismiss it as not being real.  (Or maybe the effects are just really sub par.)  But when you go watch a movie like HENRY: POASK, you don't have that easy escape because it's something that could very easily happen in real life.

Of course, that theory doesn't really hold up if you start looking at too many examples.  Also, I wonder about the new trend in war movies towards increasing amounts of violence and gore.