Sabloid

I checked my IMDB rating for Blade I and it was a 3 on 10. What a lie! I don’t recall seeing the movie ever except that I might have seen snippets whenever it came on HBO. Anything with vampires and monsters had a low rating from me. This was about 10 years ago. Yes, I was a douche. {Note: I say “was” but I will henceforth be flippant on being a douche and not being a douche based on a convenient defense strategy}. Given this background of unfounded hate why did I decide to watch Blade II. Why its only because it was directed by the Mexican horror master Guillermo Del Toro. Did I tell you that I met the man and shook hands with him? If not, you will hear it more often.

Guillermo Del Toro is extremely well read and is a great artist not just in terms of story telling but also in designing monsters and monstrous sets. I am sure they are so well detailed that I would miss most of the details on a first viewing. Even the characters names and sub plots in his films would be based on some mythical folklore. The trivia segment on IMDB for Blade II would verify so. 

Blade II started off on a weak note for me.Maybe the quick flashbacks were distracting to me; maybe I did need to watch Blade before coming to Blade II. The first action scene did not give me the adrenaline rush and I thought this was not going to go well with me. About 15 minutes into the movie when Blade has a mission to carry out the movie is well and truly in top gear.

Del Toro and writer David S Goyer setup some great actions scenes with all the thrills and horrific uneasiness that makes this a superb fare. There are characters whose motives are questionable, Blade hunts for vampires but here he has to side with them to fight a new variant of vampires. Do the vampires have other ulterior motives? There are whole lot of twists that keeps you hooked. 

And then there is also the Del Toro touch. The vampires are well designed and the variants even more so. The anthropomorphic details of the variants are gruesome and terrific. The set designs remind of you The Matrix but they are still pretty good on its own  and don’t come off as a hack.

Overall this is a fun watch reminding me to remove the rating of the first Blade movie and also to watch Blade trinity. Of course hoping the same quality from the other films would be unreasonable. Del Toro is a hard act to follow. Did I tell you I tell that I shook hands with him?