There’s no real plot to Blade II, so much as there is just a series of s

There’s no real plot to Blade II, so much as there is just a series of set-ups. Certainly David S. Goyer toys with some interesting ideas around the edges of the action, but mostly the film works best when it sets a bare stage for Guillermo Del Toro and the stunt people do their stuff. In the latter quarter when the film tries to rely more on plot, offering up some surprise betrayals and vampire in-politicking, it is much more contrived and less interesting. The best part though is in the scaling of the plot up over the first film – in creating a deadly new enemy and a situation that requires a cautious cooperation between Blade and his traditional enemies. The shaded ambiguities that exist here – the uneasy truce, the suggestion of attraction between Blade and the vampire woman Nyssa, the uncertainty over whether Whistler is cured of vampirism – add fascinating grey areas to the original. Best of all here is Del Toro regular Ron Perlman as the Bloodpack leader Reinhardt, a character that is construed as a vampiric counterpart of Blade himself, and who alas doesn’t nearly get the screen time he deserves.