Blade 2 Review!

Blade part two, the sequel. Wesley Snipes, vampires, really cool swords and kung fu, pretty much no one else in the movie, both Trent and Pete wanted to see it (they're opposites, you see)... This one could pretty much go either way on the Trent scale, folks. I'm gonna steal a riff from The Sports Guy and do it diary-style.

6:48 PM: Matt and I roll in to KFC to get some grub. KFC was the best available fast food option. How sad is that? We get into a line that's 4 deep to a cash register with no one at it. Not a good sign. The KFC radio is playing "All I need is a miracle". I start singing along.

Matt: "Yep, I was there the night he just lost it."

I stop singing.

6:51 PM: The line still isn't moving, but there's someone finally at the register. The radio is playing something undiscernible, but highly annoying. I ask "Isn't this by the same band who did the theme song for Karate Kid II? What was the name of that song?" Matt ignores me. The woman in line in front of us smiles at me and I get the sense she finds us very amusing. We get that a lot.

6:58 PM: We're sitting down in a booth under an original piece of artwork by Catherine Certitude. I'm no art critic, but I'm sure it's crap. I'm trying valiantly NOT to think of the Karate Kid song. Sure enough, there's a lull in the conversation, I think briefly about how good the chicken is, then look up: "I am a man who will fight for your honor..." Matt shoots mental daggers through my eyelids.

7:31 PM: The previews kick in with the obligatory commercials. The first one is normal, the second one shows a dad helping his kid learn about truck mechanics. It's completely sappy, and at the end we're told that it's brought to us by "Foundation for a Better Life". Huh? What the hell is this? I have no idea what this group is. Everyone (Matt, Pete, Trent, Dana, Autumn) looks at each other like we've just hit ground zero at an L Ron Hubbard convention. Matt and Trent both order me to write the name of that group down. I guess I'm really playing the part of intrepid reporter now.

7:34 PM: "You have a wild Fandango loose in your building!" Is there a worse theater commercial than this one going around right now? I loathe the Fandango guy to the point where I will go out of my way to NOT use their damn service. Not that I've ever gone to a show and got denied for tickets anyway.

7:36 PM: The first actual trailer? Star Wars Episode II. Guess they had to make up for those commercials somehow. Amazing how quiet the packed theater got. This looks like it'll be one great flick - awesome effects, lots of light saber action, Natalie Portman... I just got the chills. The theater buzzes when this one finishes. Pete, Matt, and I make plans to be in the front row on opening night.

7:38 PM: Have you noticed the new, 'more explicit', explanations of movie ratings lately? The next trailer preceeds itself by telling us the trailer is for a movie rated "R" for "Strong horror violence, language, and some sexuality". Umm... hello? Just tell us it's rated R and show us the damn trailer. I'm pretty sure we can figure out what's likely gonna be in it from the trailer. The upside to all this is that there are some very interesting descriptions out there. "Ice Age" is rated "PG" for "protagonists in peril". Yeah...

Then the trailer really throws us a bone by being for "Jason X". JASON X! I'm ready to annoint this movie a heinous 5 Trent movie just from the trailer. College kids in space unleash Jason Voorhees from stasis sleep or maybe he was just working out every day to stay in shape until modern technology could afford him another scenario to torment youth who don't know their butts from Pat Riley's hair helmet. And then at some point he ditches the tried and true generic white hockey mask for some Cyborg/Terminator mask that, if there's any justice, was shoddily made in a Caracas prison and will bust as he runs into a wall singing opera. The only thing that will save this movie from a 5 Trent rating is if it passes the point into amazingly funny badness... or I die of a massive stroke before I can write the review. I do believe we'll have to pull a "Mummy" for this one and go see it drunk.

A quick aside: The listing of movies in the lobby of the theater said that we must be "17" in order to see an "R" rated movie. Is that like the age "17", or do they mean that in more of a Winger-esque fuzzy "17" sort of way?

Does anyone else just get completely
distracted by Kirsten Dunst? I know I do...

7:42 PM: Ahh, the actual movie... ass kicking by Wesley Snipes right from the get go. Shooting, and staking, and garlicing (can I use 'garlic' as a verb?) to free his friend "Whistler" (Kris Kristofferson), who was taken hostage at the end of Blade 1. Oddly, about 35 seconds of back story as the credits roll is more than enough to get everyone caught up on what's going on, and we barrel into the meat of the movie.

I have a question: did I miss a day of evil enemy class? I thought only werewolves were killed by silver. I thought the only way to kill a vamp was with a stake through the heart, and that garlic and sunlight killed them more slowly. Did I not pay enough attention, or are the nice folks who are providing my entertainment for the evening taking liberties with the genre? I wanna know, dammit. Sadly, I forgot to ask...

The central plot is as follows: A new race of 'super' vampires is attacking the normal vampires, and they've contacted good ol' Blade, their arch nemesis, to help them kill this new strain of vampire. Blade, his buddy Whistler, and this new guy "Scud", who Blade hired to replace Whistler while he was a hostage, agree to help, and join up with the vampires, including a death squad that had been training to hunt down Blade.

7:55 PM: "Scud" provides the first of many unintentional comedy moments of the evening, by referring to Blade as "B". He sounds exactly like Dylan talking to Brandon on 90210 during Dylan's drunk season. Hee-larious. Doesn't work nearly as well when he calls Whistler "W" later on in the flick, but every utterance of "B" in that stoner voice cracks me up.

7:58 PM: There's a lawyer joke. The audience laughs. It was a damn fine line, I have to admit... but a lawyer joke? Can we put a 10 year moratorium on lawyer jokes? It's not their fault our society is a caste system of have-nots of varying degrees who've been brainwashed into thinking they can do nothing and somehow sue someone to get paid for having a shitty life. Plus, 99.5% of all lawyer jokes aren't that funny anyway.

The vampire death squad has a guy who looks just like the guitarist from Def Leppard. The first vampire hangout they go to in search of the 'super' vampires is called the House of Pain. The early 90s jokes are flying fast and furious between Matt and I. I think I just involuntarily rolled my jeans.

8:12 PM: Def Lep guy is the first vampire to die. What a shame. I didn't even get to ask if he was Armageddon it or not...

8:20 PM: "Scud" just blows my mind by using the word "suss", and referring to himself as "The Scudster" in an 8 second span. Matt elbows me in the ribs - He just called himself the Scudster! - utter disbelief over here.

8:35 PM: This movie is pretty much all action and one liners and it is really working. Kris Kristofferson is letting them fly fast and furious, and Matt leans over to say "Kris Kristofferson rules! I want that in the review." There ya go, pal. For the record, I agree.

Not that Chris Christoffersen...

It was right around this time that I stopped keeping notes. It was also right around this time that someone dropped heinous ass in the theater. I heard someone in the row behind me go "Ewww!", and then it rumbled over me. I thought for a minute that someone broke open a stink bomb, except that it kept going. In any case, someone needs to see a doctor... to quote Lenny from The Simpsons, "I don't think a normal man can make that kind of stink".

The rest of the movie was quite good. I have an admiration for any movie that throws the kitchen sink at you the way Blade 2 did for the last half of the movie. Plot twists upon plot twists upon serious ass kicking and deft one liners. I wasn't particularly fond of the chick vampire subplot, but it worked ok... and aside from the magic light bombs that somehow produced light that curves around corners, it was actually beliveable within the vamp genre. Very good stuff, and worthy of the following rating:

One Trent

10:43 PM: We retire for some 'beer therapy' at the Groveland Tap in St. Paul. Pete tells us of a bar in South Dakota called "Shotgun Willy's". Apparently it's a strip bar, and their most famous drink is the "Wet Willy", which is you, the drinker, lying on stage, with a stripper standing over you, bending slightly... at which point a midget comes up on stage and pours your drink off the stripper's back so it runs down into your mouth. Says Pete:

"So if it weren't for the midget, it'd be pretty much pointless."

It's time for bed...