I didn’t think much to the first “Blade” picture and while I wouldn’t say I enjoyed “Blade II”, it’s noticeably better. This time, Guillermo Del Toro (“Pan’s Labyrinth”) is in the director’s chair and he brings his weird obsession with gruesome monsters, which seems to make him a fitting choice for a film series so overly focused on disgusting imagery.

Legendary half-vampire Blade (Wesley Snipes “Blade”, “Demolition Man”) forms an unlikely alliance with the vampires in order to take down a new breed of vampires (‘Reapers’) that not only drink the blood of humans but vampires as well. However, Blade soon realises that there is something even more sinister going on.

Wesley Snipes returns as Blade and he does a decent job. I felt as though this movie gave him a little more opportunity to show off his martial arts skills when compared to the first film. Kris Kristofferson (“Payback”) also returns as Blade’s mentor, Whistler, and he’s okay. I didn’t really care for any of the vampire characters and I found Ron Pearlman (“Alien: Resurrection”) a little irritating. I thought it was kind-of interesting having a type of creature that the vampires fear because I felt that was an interesting twist.

This superhero sequel features better action sequences and a more interesting story than the first film but it’s still plagued by many of the issues that affected this first one. Just like the first movie, “Blade II” is obsessed with showing us extremely gory imagery and it gets dull very quickly. The “Blade” movies think they’re stylish action movies but they’re more like freak shows. If you enjoyed the first “Blade” movie then I don’t see why you wouldn’t enjoy this one but if like me, you didn’t care for the first movie, this one isn’t a big enough of an improvement to make it worthwhile.