Blade II

365 Films

Entry #139

Blade II (2002)

Directed by Guillermo Del Toro

I'm sure many of you have been wringing your hands in an anxious furor over the state of the 365 blog and whether this completely unforeseen silence could spell the end of the beloved institution.  Well fear not, for I am back and while I will complete this blog in accordance with the previously stated deadline, a few entries may suffer a bit in terms of coherence and thoroughness.  I chose to compile some thoughts in regards to Blade II for reasons concerning the upcoming release of Pacific Rim (a film for which myself and a handful of others seem to be the least bit excited).  Honestly, I don't know what the hell people want from summer movies anymore except for sequels and lame rehashes of shit they've already experienced either in film or some other medium entirely.  For example why another fucking Fast and Furious movie was met with breathless anticipation yet Pacific Rim, an original idea, seems to be inspiring little more than shrugs and a few sarcastic eye rolls will never make any sense to me.  See what I mean about coherence?  In any event, I thought I'd take the opportunity to celebrate the work of the accomplished Mr. Del Toro by tracing back the origin of my cinematic obsession with him.  I remember his name popping up with his first state side release, Mimic, but that was a film so marred by studio meddling that it wouldn't be until a decade later that Del Toro could release his preferred cut on DVD (unseen by me, I need to get around to it sometime).  That being said, something drew me to Mimic in the first place and being completely unfamiliar with his debut film, Cronos, it had to be something within the film itself.  But it would not until five years later that I would see my first "real" Del Toro movie in the form of Blade II.  I know, I know, I skipped The Devil's Backbone when it came out (give me a break, that shit never came to Funscape) but I have subsequently seen and fallen in love with it so purists rest assured.  That being said, Blade II fires out of the gate from frame number one with a zesty aplomb that incredibly, never lets up throughout entire run time of the film.  The beauty of the continuity between the first two Blade films (the less said about Trinity, the better) is that they seemed to be setting up an Alien type visual schematic with the franchise.  David Goyer would remain as screenwriter but in terms of the director, Blade II offers an entirely different visual approach to the material yet still honoring the foundational work of Blade director Stephen Norrington.  I still believe they were onto something with this character and it's a real shame that the third entry dropped the ball as egregiously as it did, hopefully some enterprising producer is looking for a cheapie horror/comic book hybrid to reboot and the Blade franchise will be back in safe hands again someday.  The beauty of Blade II is how much of Del Toro's incredibly vivid and personal imagination is on display in this film.  He took what could have been an anonymous hack job and turned it into an opportunity to crack open the inside of his brain and heart and spray it all over the screen for us to see.  One of the things I especially love about Mr. Del Toro's work is his ability to insert profoundly personal material into what might otherwise be incredibly confining genre trappings.  In his best films, the industrial strength armor like outerwear of studio approval always nurses a blood red dripping heart of a an obsessive dreamer furiously pumping every minute.  By Evoking our deep-seated fears of epidemic at the heart of modern day vampire mythos with the utmost attention to viscera and combining everything from  soap-opera style theatrics with eye popping anime visuals, Del Toro not only made the best Blade film of the series but exposed what great artists can do with supposedly constricting materials.  If only the rest of them would follow his sterling example.