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A DVD Review of...
  
Images (C) New Line Cinema |
Genre: Action
Cast: Wesley Snipes, Kris Kristofferson, Leonor Varela, Ron Perlman, Luke Goss
Synopsis: Exploding from the pages of Marvel Comics comes the thrilling follow-up to the blockbuster Blade. Blade (Wesley Snipes) is half man and half vampire and consumed by a desire to avenge the curse of his birth and save the human race from a blood-drenched Armageddon. In this newest action-packed adventure, Blade must align himself with a high-powered team of vampires to take on a greater evil than either has ever faced -- a new kind of super-vampire that is itself on a vicious hunt to eradicate both races.
Film Review: The first "Blade" came as a bit of a surprise - a dark and gory vampire tale to be sure but an interesting, modern and surprisingly fast-paced action vehicle with well planned out lore and interestingly shot sequences. "Blade II" proves a bit of a different beast altogether - and almost as good. Rather than a by the numbers sequel, Director Guillermo Del Toro has changed the tone by not only significantly increasing the amount of action & fighting, but adding a little bit of humour into the mix. The result is an ultra fast action thriller full of Matrix-esque battles and wall crawling demons - its the Wachowskis meet Stephen "The Mummy" Sommers in directorial style. Added to this is Wesley Snipes who proves much more relaxed and liberally having fun in a role which was quite frankly played like a manic depressive the first time around. Leonor Varela plays a likable female sidekick whilst ex-Bros singer Luke Goss surprisingly can act and does a good job as the villain of the piece - those days of 80's techno music and a omni-present bleached blond look which Hitler would've loved are long gone.
Due to this action injection however, the script is practically non-existent and what story is there has a good concept but never follows through on it - the Reaper origin story uses an unoriginal genetics subplot, the almost Frankenstein style sub story between creator and monster at the end is good but its too little too late, and aside from Perlmann (who gets one or two lines) and the female lead - none of the bloodpack is memorable including Donnie Yen who is completely wasted in a role which requires not only no dialogue but maybe one 5-second fight scene. Despite a much more liberal use of colored lighting and some interesting visual FX shots, it can't help quite hide the fact the film still looks like it was entirely shot in a concrete factory which gives it a much more enclosed and less epic feel of the first film. "Blade" made good use of its coastal city locale, here Prague may as well be midnight Toronto - hell everyone seems to speak English and wear leather. First time around Kristofferson was a very cool ass kicking sidekick, this time he's there simply to be beaten up it seems most of the time - gone is the character's wisdom and gruff machoism. The background characters are also a big disappointment here - the first had a beautifully over the top Stephen Dorff, Tracey Lords, a sniding Udo Kier, a cool blond English chick and a fat librarian vampire to name a few - here there's a balding mastermind, some chick with pink hair, a star from "Gossip" and a Maori. The less said about the bad techno music the better.
Its more accesible and engaging to mainstream audiences than the first, but certainly not as challenging or rewarding in the long term. That's why on first viewing with an audience people will love this but on further looks they'll quickly tire of it (which explains the box-office drop off) - the first "Blade" is a well made and distinctive cult movie, "Blade II" is a forgettable but exciting mainstream in your face popcorn movie. Its glorious fun but don't think about it too much. - Garth Franklin
"Blade 2: Platinum Series"
DVD Details In Brief (Region 1)
Rating: R
Runtime: 117mins
Versions: 16:9 Enhanced Widescreen, 4:3 Letterboxed
Aspect Ratio: 1.85: 1
Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1EX & DTS ES 6.1
Language & Sub-Titles: English
Commentaries: Track 1 by Director Guillermo Del Toro & Producer Peter Frankfurt. Track 2 by Writer David Goyer & Actor Wesley Snipes. Isolated Score Track
Documentaries: Interactive Featurettes, Director's Notebook
Clips: Deleted/Alternate Scenes, Trailers, Music Video
Other: Artwork Gallery, Video Game Survival Guide, Production Notes, Script
Region 1 vs. Region 4: No Region 4 Available. |
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DVD Review: The first "Blade" had a highly acclaimed single disc set, now New Line has gone out even better for the sequel and delivered a truly dynamic release whose transfer is just as high quality as you'd expect, and the extras not only extensive but engaging as well. The transfer is excellent - for a film so saturated in both high colour levels and many shades of darkness the video is rich with shadow detail, spot-on edges and zero noise or grain. The various vampire skins, dark clothing and well-dressed sets all come out with a rich visual appearance. Audio is even better - this makes aggressive use of surround sound FX, Beltrami's score rings through superbly and dialogue remains crystal clear throughout on both tracks. There's an isolated score track for enthusiasts of both techno music and orchestral elements mixed together.
Disc One also contains two separate commentary tracks. The first is by Director Guillermo Del Toro and Producer Peter Frankfurt. Del Toro himself is a unique personality, the guy is great fun and knows (and loves) his craft yet never takes anything too seriously and is obsessed with sexual references - in other words he's cool fun. Frankfurt tries to keep up with the quips and as a result the duo prove an entertaining pair who cover more broader themes and subjects which influenced the film's design and making rather than focussing on specific technical details. The second track with Snipes & Goyer is more on-set shooting details, and a few story details (Snipes has fun though Goyer acts like an interviewer at times).
Onto Disc Two and there's a well spring of major extras in here all presented with the quality you'd expect
from a major New Line release. Coming in at 83 minutes, "The Blood Pack" behind-the-scenes documentary
is a real thorough examination of the film and its various stages from the Blade character and Del Toro's directing style to more practical making of elements like costume and production design, along with stunts and creature FX. You either have the option of watching the whole thing at once, as eight separate featurettes with some (such as the score) leading off into other elements, or in a 'White Rabbit Icon' style way throughout the film. The video is full screen in decent but not great quality.
"Visual Effects" is split into three parts. "Synthetic Stuntmen" talks about the use of CG stuntmen which had to be totally and believably detailled and intergrated with live actors to come up with single shots that swapped between the live actors and CG models with a seamless transition. "The Digital Maw" continues with the same FX guys and theme but focussing on the digital Reaper mouth effects along with some cool on-set footage. "Progress Reports" goes for nearly an hour and is seven separate pieces with Makeup Designer Steve Johnson talking about sculpting and practical makeup FX with lots of video from the 'factory floor' where the various artists show off model details with a nice sense of humour (check out the anus mechanism). With footage ranging from baby embryos on a stick to Kris Kirstofferson in a body cast, there's lots of really fun geeky stuff here for enthusiasts.
"Sequence Breakdowns" takes six scenes from the film (ie. Ninja Fight, House of Pain, Caliban, etc.) totalling up at just under half an hour of footage. With each of these you can see the sequence's original script pages, the shooting script pages, the storyboarded version, the on-set action video, the visual effects breakdown and the final film version. The on-set video stuff is rather rough quality but still quite good. "Director's Notebook" contains scans of both Del Toro and script supervisor's Claudine Strassers notebooks throughout the course of production and include many very cool polaroids, script pages, screen captures of dailies, sketches of character outfits and designs in two very different hand-writing styles. Also in this section are script pages for three unused or unshot sequences. "Art Gallery" contains hundreds of highly detailled sketches of the props, weapons, characters, sets, costumes, storyboards and various action sequences throughout the film - there's some gorgeous alternate design tactics.
"Deleted and Alternate Scenes" starts with a nice semen-related joke video by Del Toro (you gotta love this guy) before proceeding to sixteen seperate scenes totalling in about 25 minutes of footage and all presented in final movie quality anamorphic widescreen and complete audio. You can play them seperately or all at once with optional commentary by Del Toro and Frankfurt which is just as fun (and at times more interesting) than the feature track. There's moments of
interesting addition to the mythology including a flashback where Whistler discovers a teenage Blade in Chicago 1982,
a new intro to Damaskinos with & without a Michael Bolton-esque hairdo, more vampire mythology about Damaskinos' heritage,a nice chat beteen Whistler & Scud, and the 'dirty' epilogue complete with murder and sperm stains.
Promotional Material is the third section and rounds off the set. "Blade II Video Game Survival Guide" is more of a narrated near three-minute commercial for the PS2 game than actual hints for what to do (ie. "just beat up these guys over here and here and you'll have better skill - no sh*t!). "Theatrical Press Kit" includes standard production notes and filmographies. "Trailers" has both the 2-minute theatrical preview and the 30-second Superbowl commerical. Finally comes the 3.5 minute Cypress Hill and Roni Size "Child of the Wild West" music video - a really cheap looking video which never ties back into the film aside from odd clips here and there strewn into the action - even for techno this is still crap.
DVD-Rom standard features such as script to screen and website link cap off this slick two-disc set. All up once again New Line shows that whe it comes to DVD, its good to have either high quality or a large quantity of extras, but its better to have both. "Blade 2" is a dumb popcorn movie but fun, the disc set on the other hand is almost a work of art. - Garth Franklin
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