The Mechanic

Some people may not care about where Batman got the Batmobile, but I do. And "The Mechanic" answers that question for me. It was the 55th produced episode, and 48th aired on Jan. 24, 1993.

My first point will be for the great banter between Batman and Robin at the start of the episode. It seems like it's been a long time since I've reviewed an episode with Robin in it, and it was a nice treat to see him again. In the midst of a pretty entertaining car chase, one of Penguin's men opens fire on the Batmobile to no avail. Robin asks, "Is he kidding?" Batman (showing a rare sense of humor) says, "Maybe he's new in town."

I'll raise the score to a 7 for one of the best Penguin moments in the entire show. Some nerdy pencil pusher presents Penguin with copious notes detailing exactly where the Batmobile was made. As a reward, Penguin writes the man a check for $300,000 — no, $400,000 — and pushes him onto his giant rubber duck. And the poor nerd is so polite that he still yells, "Excuse me!" while he's being sucked down to his death. Just beautiful. I don't know why I love the Penguin so much, but I do. Especially his giant rubber duck.

Now I do have a problem with the backstory of Batman's mechanic, Earl. He was a rising star at a big car company, but one day he presented his boss with information that their new sports car had faulty brakes. Instead of fixing the problem or issuing a recall (which happens all the time), the boss tells Earl that the lawyers assured him they wouldn't be held accountable. Meanwhile, for some reason, Batman is listening in on this conversation. (Does he just spy on all the top businessmen in Gotham?) Anyway, Earl refuses to remain silent, so his boss sends some hired thugs to beat him up. Batman saves him, of course, but Earl can't find any work because he now has the reputation of a whistleblower. Seriously? How corrupt is Gotham? Not a single car company will hire a man who was honest and wanted to fix some faulty brakes? But luckily, Batman showed up in his old, beat-up Batmobile, and commissioned Earl to build him a new one. At the end of the day, I guess it all works out, but there were still a few problems that bugged me, so I'll have to take a point off.

The latter half of this episode directly rips a plot point from Batman Returns, which came out shortly before this episode. And that plot point involves Penguin taking control of the Batmobile. It's a brilliant idea, but I felt the movie executed it rather poorly. They didn't sufficiently explain how Penguin's crew was able to bypass the Batmobile's security system, and things got really goofy when Penguin sat in a kiddie ride shaped like the Batmobile to control it. And then the whole crisis was solved by having Batman punch a hole through the bottom of his car. I think this episode improved on that idea in every regard. Penguin tracked down the man who built the Batmobile and coerced him into sabotaging it. But Earl was still able to give Batman a clue, which ended up saving him in the end. Now, I could penalize this episode for its lack of originality, but I will reward it for vastly improving an interesting concept. It's funny to see how a simple sentence — "Penguin takes control of the Batmobile" — can be interpreted in two vastly different ways. One that worked, and one that didn't.

Final score: 7

Zatanna

"Zatanna" was the 54th-produced episode of Batman: The Animated Series and the 50th-aired on Feb. 2, 1993. Although it was written by the legendary Paul Dini and had tons of potential to be an all-time great episode, it suffered from having two directors. Dick Sebast started it, but then for whatever reason left halfway through, leaving Dan Riba to try to finish it. And this episode certainly feels like two separate stories crammed together.

I'll start by adding a point for the fantastic flashback of a young Bruce training to become a master escape artist. It truly is a rare treat to see a pre-Batman Bruce Wayne traveling the world to learn various skills. I'm really surprised we still haven't gotten a show or comic book series about a globetrotting Bruce. Anyway, what really makes this episode so awesome is that Bruce is training with Zatara, who is actually a very old comic book character, appearing in a side story in 1938's Action Comics #1. And for almost 20 years, this was the only appearance of Zatara on TV until he showed up on Young Justice.

But there's more to this great flashback. We get to see young Zatanna flirt with Bruce, which is really fun. Those two have a great chemistry together, and it's a shame she doesn't return until Justice League Unlimited. She plays a little card game with him to predict his future, and Bruce naturally pulls the Joker card. A little cliche, I know, but it's still fun. We're up to a 7 now.

The next point I'll add will not be for something they did in the episode, but for something they did not do. I really like that Zatanna does not have actual magic powers. Batman and magic just does not work. Ever, really. Especially in this ultra-realistic show, it fits so much better to have Zatanna simply be an ordinary magician. But that doesn't mean she won't go on adventures and fight criminals. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I'm saddened by the fact that we didn't get any more episodes of a crime-fighting Zatanna using nothing more than practical effects and her quick wits. It could have been great!

Continuing the flirting from the flashback, Batman and Zatanna have wonderful banter in the Batmobile. It's one of the rare times that Batman lets his guard down, awkwardly asking, "Isn't there someone you need to call? Friends, family ... a husband, perhaps?" I bet he was really glad he was wearing a mask right then to cover his blushing face. Moments later, Zatanna realizes Batman is very familiar, and he quickly says, "I just have one of those faces ..." Sure, Batman. We're at an almost perfect score of a 9 right now.

Unfortunately, this is where the second half of the episode starts, and it, well — how can I say this nicely? — it sucks. Everything just falls apart. It doesn't help that the main villain is rather weird and boring, and has a weird habit of always sitting down — even when he needs to awkwardly stand up and turn his chair around to sit and face Batman. But that doesn't bother me near as much as plot holes and leaps in logic. Montague first sets an elaborate trap for Batman and Zatanna, involving closing walls of spikes. A classic comic book cliche, and Montague even mentions that, while he drops a casual line/clue about him going to a more comfortable climate. When our heroes escape, Batman notices a picture of a very large and extravagant airplane. Suddenly, Batman and Zatanna are on the plane, confronting Montague. How'd they get there so quickly? Minus one point.

The action naturally spills out to the outside of the plane while it's flying high above the ocean, and things start to get really, really weird. Montague tries to shake Batman off by tilting the plane up and down, but Batman counters that by grabbing one of the wing's rudders and moving it himself. No. No! There is no way Batman should be able to do that. I don't care how strong he is, that is a physically impossible feat. We're back down to a 7.

And then we get one very lame and poorly choreographed fight on the plane's wing to end the episode. Overlooking the complete ridiculousness of two guys with an axe chasing Batman around on an airplane that's flying high above the ocean, this is a really lame fight. Batman doesn't really do much, mostly just dodge until one of them charges at Batman, misses, and runs into the other henchman, and they both fall off the plane. Ugh. What a completely disappointing end to what could have been a spectacular episode.

Final score: 6

Daredevil

In 2003, Marvel was enjoying the beginning of it movie golden age. X-Men and Spider-Man were huge hits, and even the R-rated Blade franchise had made two successful movies. So Marvel decided to have a go with another popular character, Daredevil. Mark Steven Johnson was the director, Ben Affleck played the lead, Jennifer Garner (Affleck's real-life wife) played his girlfriend, Elektra, Michael Clarke Duncan played the notorious Kingpin, and Colin Farrell played the second villain, Bullseye.

Now, I've never really enjoyed Daredevil. I've read a few of his comics, but they always seemed to dark and too similar to Batman. I kinda always felt that the Daredevil creators were just people who wanted to work on Batman, but weren't allowed to. But I think the similarities to Batman did help this movie, which came out before Batman Begins — the public consciousness demands quality Batman films, and anything that approximates it will do well. And Daredevil did do well — earning $179 million off its $79 million budget. It is interesting to note though, that once Christopher Nolan made his first Batman movie, Daredevil dropped off the face of the Earth. But getting back to the dark aspect of this character, I was glad that this movie came with a PG-13 rating. It could have easily been rated R — and there is an R-rated director's cut on Blu-Ray — but I personally believe that all superhero movies should be PG-13. For this review, I only watched the PG-13 version.

Overall, I have to say I enjoyed this beginning. A young Matt Murdock, who fights for his father's honor, gets blinded immediately after he sees his dad working for the mob. And the part with him waking up in the hospital to his newly-heightened senses was nice, as well. And I particularly enjoyed this Stan Lee cameo. The blind Matt stops him from crossing the street, saving the prolific comic creator. I like the symbolism here: Stan Lee is saved and supported by his creations — not the other way around. Because while Stan the Man did technically create most of the Marvel staples, many of them did not become popular until another writer took over. And Daredevil was one such character who never did anything until Frank Miller started writing him. And Frank Miller also makes a cameo in this movie as one of Bullseye's victims. And another popular Daredevil writer, Kevin Smith, even got a speaking role as a nerdy lab assistant. Plus, every boxer Matt's dad fought had the name of a Daredevil writer or artist. It's kind of cool to have all these cameos when you recognize them, but it's also kind of distracting.

The movie takes its first major dive very shortly after the Stan Lee appearance. Blind Matt is again cornered by his local bullies, who decide to make fun of the kid now that he's blind. Seriously? You're picking on the blind kid? What next, are you going to toss him and his puppy into the ocean? But anyway, they challenge Matt to a fight, and he accepts. First he lightly taps one of them on the face with his walking stick, and one of them immediately freaks out and runs away screaming. But he also receives the unrelenting fury of Matt's light taps. Then Matt randomly does a backflip to kick the last bully in the chin. What? I know he just said his sense of touch was increased, but that doesn't mean he can instantly do backflips!

So Matt's dad was an aging boxer who worked for the mob. But after Matt's accident, he decided to go clean and focus on his boxing career. He then went on a huge win streak, and was even the featured fighter on the marquee. But then one day, his old mob buddies told him that all his past fights were rigged, and now it's time for him to throw the fight. First of all, wouldn't the mob make more money if the aging star kept beating the odds and continued to win? And secondly, why didn't the mob care that he stopped working for them? It seems like that should have been a bigger deal, but they specifically say several times throughout this movie that Jack Murdock was killed only because he refused to throw the fight. Lame!

We now cut forward to an adult Matt Murdock, who is a lawyer trying to defend a rape victim. But the alleged rapist is one of Kingpin's men, and has a high-priced lawyer, who basically kicks Matt's butt in court. I would have liked our hero to be a little more competent in the courtroom. But all he really does here is tell the guy, "I hope justice is found here today before justice finds you." That's a neat line, but it would have worked a whole lot better had Murdock been going up against a corrupt judge, instead of a more qualified, high-priced lawyer.

Keeping true to his word, Murdock follows this alleged rapist as the vigilante Daredevil. But instead of cornering this guy alone in a dark alley, Daredevil waits until he's in a bar surrounded by tons and tons of people. Naturally, Daredevil has to beat the crap out of every single one of them before he gets to the one guy he wants. And it takes forever. Sure, the action's OK, it just felt unnecessary. Finally, Daredevil corners his man in the subway tunnel, which is empty, since it's the middle of the night. Daredevil briefly loses his grip, when the very loud passing of a train startles him. But he quickly rebounds, and throws the guy onto the tracks, cracking his back. Then, two seconds later, another train comes by, killing the scumbag. Two things: First, subway trains do not run in such quick succession of each other, especially at the middle of the night. There would be at least a half-hour delay between the trains, if not longer. Second, superheroes are not supposed to kill! Yes, I know this guy raped a girl, which is very, very, very wrong. But I don't think he should be killed for it. He only got free because Murdock got outworked and outclassed by a better lawyer in the courtroom. Just because you lost the case doesn't give you the right to go out and kill people! Maybe instead of making elaborate costumes and weapons, you should be studying your brail law books more. But then, that would make for a very boring movie, now wouldn't it?

But there is a bright point in this movie in the form of Murdock's trusty, yet bumbling partner, Foggy, played by the always fun Jon Favreau. I've only seen a few movies with Favreau, but I've liked all of them, especially the Iron Man ones he also directed. Technically speaking, this movie was produced by Fox and is not in the same universe as the Avengers Marvel universe. But I like to pretend that Foggy decided to leave Murdock at the end of this movie, and go work for Tony Stark under the name Happy. Regardless, I really liked Foggy's humor here and his fun relationship with Murdock. From arguing about alligators in the sewers to sneaking mustard into each other's coffee, it's all fun and absolutely needed in such a dark and serious movie.

However, as much as I love Foggy, I hate Elektra even more. Right from the get-go, I just wanted to smack her. She enters the coffee shop, takes about two sips, and decides to leave as soon as Murdock starts hitting on her. He grabs her arm, and she coldly says, "I don't like being touched." He then follows her to a park and the two immediately engage in a very long and dull martial arts fight. To tell us, the audience, that this fight is exciting, they brought in a bunch of kids to cheer them on. Maybe this fight would have worked had they cast someone else as Elektra, because Jennifer Garner never comes across as someone tough enough to pull all those moves. Sure she's pretty, but she's probably too pretty. She at least shows way too much cleavage, especially for someone who wants to become a vigilante in high heels herself. The whole movie, I was looking for something, anything, that would warrant this Elektra getting her own sequel, and I didn't see anything. I'm already dreading reviewing that movie.

Now we finally get to a character I know and love — Kingpin. He was a legendary force on the '90s Spider-Man cartoon, running all organized crime in New York, commissioning crazy robots to take down the web-slinger, and even uniting the Sinister Six. And lest you think he's just a big fat guy, he even got into a couple of fights with ol' Spidey, tossing him around like a rag doll. He quite possibly is my favorite Spider-Man villain. But then Marvel decided to give him to Daredevil because he doesn't have enough good villains, and Spider-Man has plenty. That bugged me 10 years ago, as did making Kingpin black. But now, it doesn't bother me at all, and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed Michael Clarke Duncan's portrayal here. No, he wasn't as big as Kingpin in the comics, but he was about as big as they could make him in a movie. Duncan was naturally a very large man, and they helped add to that by constantly putting a really short guy right next to him. And overall, Kingpin in this movie was everything I'd want him to be — vicious, calculating, and always in control of the situation. And then this movie added the fun aspect of Kingpin giving each of his victims a single rose. It was fun. Sadly, Michael Clarke Duncan died of a heart attack at age 54.


The second villain in this movie was surprisingly likable. Colin Farrell as Bullseye was absolutely crazy, which made him kind of fun. His best scene was on the airplane next to a talkative grandma. He flicked a peanut off the seat and into her windpipe, quietly choking her so people just thought she fell asleep. We've all been there, and we've all secretly wanted to do something like that. However, I was really sad that Bullseye never got a proper costume, especially after he specifically asked for one. Daredevil has a nice costume, why not Bullseye?

I do have to take points off for the obligatory and ultimately unnecessary sex scene with Daredevil and Elektra. They easily could have shown a lot loss and still gotten the point across. Also, it seemed to totally come out of the blue. These two haven't even been on a date, unless you count that "fight" in the park. All in all, it was just in poor taste.

What's worse than watching Elektra try to fight? Watching Elektra try to shoot a gun. In an extremely pivotal, yet stupid scene, Bullseye kills Elektra's dad with Daredevil's stick. I don't know how that stick managed to go into that man's chest — it didn't seem particularly sharp — but that's beside the point. For some reason, Elektra didn't see Bullseye, but she did see Daredevil and instantly assumed he killed her dad. She randomly picks up a gun that just happens to be there, and opens fire on Daredevil, just holding the gun in one hand and looking exactly like someone who'd never fired a gun would look. It was unbearable.

Speaking of unbearable fight scenes, let's skip ahead to Daredevil's big fight with Bullseye in the church. It started off alright, but then more and more CGI came into play as these two began scaling the massive organ. And then the worst effect was when Bullseye caught a bunch of shards of glass to throw at Daredevil. This movie is 10 years old, and CGI does not age well. Also, what was with all the bats that randomly flew out of the organ? I know you guys wanted to do Batman, but you couldn't, so stop pretending this is Batman!

So to recap, in the space of maybe one hour, Elektra fights Daredevil and stabs him pretty bad in the shoulder. Bullseye then shows up and kills her, so Daredevil fights him for a long time, finally tossing him out of a window and onto a moving car. Immediately after this, an injured and exhausted Daredevil decides to go take on the Kingpin. You really had to do it right then and there? Luckily for him, Kingpin called off all his guards so he could fight the Man Without Fear by himself.

Now, this is supposed to be the big, ultimate final fight. But it really wasn't much of a fight at all. This is exactly what happens: Kingpin grabs Daredevil and throws him up against the ceiling. He then picks him up and throws him across the room. He then stops to smell a rose and taunts the hero a bit, before wisely removing his mask. Upon seeing the blind lawyer, Kingpin starts laughing, and then Daredevil breaks open a water pipe that conveniently happens to be right next to him. All the water splashing around helps Daredevil "see" his enemy, and he slides between his legs and kicks out his kneecaps. He then refuses to kill the Kingpin, saying he's not the bad guy. This makes no sense, because we've already seen Daredevil kill at least one man and attempt to kill Bullseye — he miraculously survived his huge fall, but really should have died. Kingpin is kneeling on the ground laughing, saying he'll reveal Daredevil's identity to the world. Daredevil says, "Go ahead. Tell everyone you got beat by a blind man." Guess what, Daredevil? Kingpin's not going to care about that! If you let him live, he will find a way to kill you, even from behind bars. And since we didn't get a Daredevil sequel, I'm going to pretend that was what happened. Kingpin still has tons of connections, and one day, he'll get a special visitor. Kingpin will give him a small note, and a couple of hours later, Matt Murdock will get shot by a sniper between the eyes. It's not a good sign when fans start fantasizing about the main character's death.

So yeah, that was Daredevil. Nowhere near as good as it could have been, but definitely not the worst movie I've ever seen. It was, however, bad enough to make Ben Affleck swear off superheroes. Hence, the next movie in this series stars Elektra and not Daredevil. Luckily, Fox has now relinquished the Daredevil movie rights back to Marvel, so now there's a possibility he could be included in their ever-growing movie universe. And, as everybody knows by now, Affleck has recently lifted his ban on superheroes. But he's not going to be playing any superhero — he's going to play THE superhero in Batman. In Daredevil, I thought he was alright. Not particularly good, but not awful like Jennifer Garner was as Elektra. With a good script, I think Affleck could make a great Batman.

Final score: 1

Blade II

After the big success of 1998's Blade, Marvel went on to make the much more successful X-Men and Spider-Man, but took four years to get Blade II off the ground. The original script involved some wacky time travel, and at some point the original director left. But they eventually found a serviceable replacement in Guillermo del Toro, and they managed to bring back Wesley Snipes in the title role and Kris Kristofferson as his sidekick. The new faces included Ron Perlman as a tough-guy vampire, and Leonor Varela as the new romantic interest, who happens to also be a vampire. The first Blade movie had a $45 million budget and made more than $130 million in the box office. Its sequel was given a slightly larger budget of $55 million, and earned more than $150 million. So they had pretty much figured out a stable, reliable formula for turning a profit with these vampire-hunter movies.

The movie opens in Prague, Czech Republic! I don't know why, but I love it! Having lived in that city for six months, that place is near and dear to my heart, so I always get real excited to see it. And they actually shot this on location, giving us a few (yet still not enough) great views of the city's skyline. Plus, about half the people who worked on this movie were Czech, and it was a Czech who created the vampire language, which sounded an awful lot like Czech with a little Russian mixed in. There were even a couple of vampire phrases that I understood, even though it's supposed to be a fictional language.

So anyway, we're in Prague, and we see a rather sickly-looking fellow enter a blood bank. He's led into a very sinister-looking room, and we quickly discover the doctors are all vampires. The guy starts to cry, then laugh, and he jumps up and starts attacking and biting the vampires. He then looks into a security camera and says, "I hate vampires!"

We then cut to the opening credits with Blade providing a voice over recapping the events of the previous film, which apparently happened two years ago. He reminds us that he's half-vampire, has all their strengths and none of their weaknesses, but then he says that his friend and weapons provider, Whistler, actually did not die in the last movie. Even though we knew 100% that Whistler shot himself before he could turn into a vampire, this movie replayed that scene to prove to us that they never actually showed him dying, so we're supposed to believe that he actually did turn into a vampire, then was captured by other vampires and taken over to Prague, while Blade was busy killing Deacon Frost and his group. Whatever.

Right away, we can tell with these open action scenes that they're trying to out-do the previous movie. I'd be OK with that, if they didn't rely heavily on outdated CGI and speeding up/slowing down the film speed. We have to remember, this was 2002, height of the Matrix phase, and these filmmakers were very proud with what they could do on a computer. A full decade later, these effects look really crappy, which is especially troubling since they take away from Wesley Snipes' superb martial arts.

Anyway, Blade kills a whole bunch of vampires (but intentionally lets one live) while he's hunting down Whistler. He finally finds him floating in a big tank of blood, frees him, and takes him back to his base with his new weapons provider, Scud. Scud is an annoying punk, who is constantly smoking, eating Krispy Kremes, and is always, always watching Powerpuff Girls. It's so random! I tried to figure out why this cartoon was featured so prominently, and all I could find was that the director wanted to make this movie look like a Japanese anime, and he originally wanted to show Speed Racer on Scud's TVs. But the Speed Racer people turned him down — they had plans in the works for their own movie in the near future — so Guillermo del Toro went with his second option(?) Powerpuff Girls. I guess it kinda looks like an anime ...

So yeah, Blade gives Whistler an antidote, and even though he doesn't mention her, I'm assuming this came from his hematologist girlfriend from the last movie. But the important thing is, whether I like it or not, Whistler is back, alive and well, and now caught in a petty little rivalry with Scud to see who can make the best weapons. The movie spends a lot of time making us suspect that Whistler is secretly working for the bad guys, but that turns out not to be the case — really making me wonder why they went to such lengths to bring him back from the dead in the first place. It's not like he was particularly memorable from the first movie.

Enough griping from me, and on to the plot. A couple of ninja vampire sneak into Blade's base, and he fights them for a very long time, before one of them finally yells stop, and for no apparent reason, Blade decides to stop and talk to the vampires. The vampires offer a truce and seek Blade's help with a problem they're having. They all go to their aging vampire overlord, who shows them security footage of the new monster from the beginning. His name is Jared Nomak, and he was born a vampire, but developed a type of cancer that turned him into a reaper. He now feeds on vampires, turning them into reapers. Apparently they need to feed every day, so their numbers are growing exponentially. The vampires convince Blade to help them stop the reapers before they grow out of control and begin feeding on humans as well.

Blade is put in charge of a team called the Blood Pack, which has way too many people to keep straight, but the notable members are Nyssa, the daughter of the overlord, and Rheinhardt, played by the incredible Ron Perlman. I know him best as the voice of Slade on Teen Titans and the star of Hellboy. Perlman has such a wonderful voice, I love it whenever he talks. He also has a really goofy-looking head, which works great for a vampire. So Ron Perlman is the big tough guy, and he starts trash-talking Blade. Blade then shows him who's boss by sticking a silver bomb to the back of his head.

Blade then leads the Blood Pack to their first mission, staking out a vampire night club to try to find the reapers. This is where the music gets really annoying. The first movie had tons of techno, which sucked, and this one continues the trend. I guess it makes sense for the Czech vampires to be a little behind the trend with popular music, but that still doesn't prevent the music from being sucky. Also, this where the movie becomes a horror film. Or at least tries to be. Everybody splits up, and naturally attacked separately. We learn that reapers are stronger than vampires (of course), and are immune to silver and garlic, but sunlight still kills them. We also see that their jaws can open up like a venus fly trap, and they have weird sucker-tentacle things. It is pretty gross, but mildly interesting.

During this big fight, Nomak has a chance to kill Nyssa, but doesn't, and Blade calls her out on it. One of the vampires in the Blood Pack is bitten, and his friends try to alleviate him from his pain by killing him. They slice off a big chunk of his head, but he still lives until Blade exposes him to sunlight. In a very strange bit of CGI, we see the severed portion of the head remaining after the main body explodes, and its eyes still moves around and blinks. Why did they include this? It's so strange. Isn't this movie strange enough?

The Blood Pack managed to capture a reaper and take it back the base to perform an autopsy on it. This is another gross, yet interesting scene. We learn that reapers have the added protection of incasing their hearts in bone, leaving only an opening on the side. At some point after this, Blade and Nyssa begin to fall in love for no apparent reason other than the fact that he's the main character and she's the female lead.

Blade plans to hunt for the reapers at daylight, and Whistler and Scud create a couple of nonsensical UV light bombs, while the vampires create some spiffy-looking armor to the tune of some more horrible techno music. But none of them cover their heads, which turns out to hurt them in the end. I find this part odd, because we saw in the first movie how vampires could withstand the sunlight by wearing shaded motorcycle helmets or copious amounts of sunscreen. But these vampires decided they didn't need to take such precautions.

So they head on into the sewers, using reaper pheromones to attract them (don't ask), and naturally everybody splits up and everybody dies. This is supposed to be a tense, horror-movie scene with our "heroes" slowly being picked off one by one, but I found it incredibly boring. I don't know, I guess most horror doesn't work for me. Anyway, at one point, Nomak corners Whistler, and whispers a dark secret into his ear. Blade kills all the reapers (except for Nomak, conveniently) with a big UV light bomb that causes light to look and act a lot like fire. Hmm. Whatever. So like I said, everybody dies, except for Blade, Whistler, Ron Perlman and Nyssa. But Nyssa is severely weakened by the UV light bomb, so Blade slices open his wrist and allows his newfound girlfriend to drink some of his blood. This scene is very similar to a scene in the first movie, although it is much more tender and much less sexual than the first movie's. Unfortunately, I still can't figure out why Blade likes this girl vampire so much and is saving her life.

As soon as Nyssa is back to full health, Blade and Whistler are ambushed and captured by the vampires. They're taken back to the vampire overlord, and Whistler reveals the Truth, as told to him by Nomak. The reaper virus was actually created by the overlord in an attempt to rid vampires of their weaknesses. Nomak, his son, was a failed experiment. Nyssa is shocked and saddened to hear this, and when she confronts her father, he simply says, "I would have thought it was obvious at this point." And it was obvious — Nomak and the overlord look exactly the same.

Ron Perlman then prepares to kill Blade and Whistler, so Blade pushes the trigger to activate the bomb on his head, but it doesn't work! Ron Perlman rips it off and hands it to Scud, who reveals that he has secretly been working for the vampires all along, and the bomb he created was just a dud. But then Blade reveals that he secretly knew Scud was a traitor the whole time and the bomb is actually not a dud, and he activates it, blowing Scud up.

Blade is then taken to an operating table, where his blood and organs will be harvested so the vampires can study it to further their research. There's a lot of confusion and commotion caused when Nomak attacks the stronghold, and Whistler escapes from Ron Perlman and saves Blade. Blade then bathes in a random pool of blood, and emerges to fight tons of vampires to more awful techno music. Finally, it's just Blade and Ron Perlman left. Ron Perlman has Blade's sword, and he tries to use it to kill Blade, but he somehow catches the blade with his hands and wrestles it from Ron Perlman's grasp. He then cuts the evil vampire in half, and it looks pretty cheesy. To end this scene, Whistler tosses Blade his signature sunglasses, and he catches them in the most dramatic way possible.

Meanwhile, Nyssa and her dad are running away from Nomak, but then Nyssa suddenly betrays her father and locks the three of them in a room. Nomak kills the old vampire, who has green blood for some reason, and then Nyssa willingly surrenders to her brother, and I have no idea why. Blade doesn't arrive until after Nomak bites his sister, so while she lies on the floor slowly changing into a reaper, Blade fights Nomak for what seems like forever. Again, the action is mostly good, but then they'll randomly put in a CGI Blade to perform a very fake-looking flip, and then they'll speed up the film to make it look even worse. Eventually Blade beats Nomak by stabbing him in the side and reaching his heart's one weak spot. Nyssa then requests to die as a vampire by seeing the sun rise, so Blade takes her in his arms outside, and sadly watches as she dissolves away in the beautiful sunrise. It's a sweet, tender scene, but it really feels out of left field. Why does Blade love her?

And then, instead of ending the movie on this genuinely beautiful and touching moment, we head over to London to see Blade kill the vampire he let live in the beginning. It was supposed to be funny, I guess.

So yeah, that was Blade II. In some ways, I felt this was better than the first movie. Wesley Snipes seemed to have a better handle on what worked and what didn't work for his character — he had fewer cheesy one-liners and didn't try so much to be funny. He also had a stronger supporting cast around him, including his new love interest, even if that romance was not properly developed. However, this sequel really annoyed me with quite a few things. I felt they cheated to bring back Whistler, and their was no real payoff for that. I also hated the cliche plot of making our hero team up with his enemies to take down an even stronger evil. I would've been perfectly content to just watch Blade kill more normal vampires. Another big problem was the over-reliance of special effects, which killed the action in this movie — a movie that wanted to be both action and horror, and kinda ended up as neither. And finally, this movie let me down by not being about Blade very much. The real plot of this story was about the struggle between this vampire father, son and daughter. And Blade is stuck in the middle of it all. It reminds me a lot of another Guillermo del Toro movie, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, which had very little to do with Hellboy and a lot to do with this weird brother-sister dynamic.

I wish I could take my favorite elements from Blade and combine them with my favorite elements of Blade II. I'd then tone it down to a PG-13 rating, and it would be the perfect Blade movie. But that is not possible. I just have to hope that the next movie they did make, Blade: Trinity, can live up to my dreams.

Final score: 1