reVIEW (34)
BLADE II

With Guillermo Del Toro’s Hellboy II: The Golden Army coming rapidly down the pike, I thought to look back at his immensely enjoyable Blade II.
And as an added bonus, I’ve also resurrected a review of Blade: Trinity, which is somewhere in the Archive.
Sorry, but I’m not enough of a masochist to actually endure Steve Norrington’s Blade again just so I can write a review of it. That’s for far braver souls than I.

Now if you’re a regular ‘round here at the Iguana, you’ll know that I love me my vampires, so I’m rather picky when it comes to my suckheads.
Well, I was pretty underwhelmed with Steve Norrington’s stab at the genre with the original Blade. Though it did have Stephen Dorff and Udo Kier in it, the movie itself was fairly unimpressive.
Not so with Guillermo Del Toro’s Blade II.

To begin with, this sequel’s actually got a director behind the wheel, someone with a clear and focused vision of the film he wants to make, and the skill and creativity to bring that vision to celluloid life.
That director then has a script by David S. Goyer, who, apparently realizing that a Blade movie is, in essence, a Wesley Snipes action vehicle, throws out all that bush league vampire politicking from the original, and serves up a high-flying, kick-a$$ ride, with crateloads of crazy, wonderful toys that make nasty undead meanies go boom.

Aside from Del Toro and Goyer, there’s a whole bunch of other key personnel involved that make Blade II have the big, sharp, and formidable teeth that it does.
There’s the triple threat of cinematographer Gabriel Beristain (The Ring Two and The Invisible), long-time David Cronenberg collaborator, production designer Carol Spier (who also worked on Christophe Gans‘ ultra-creepfest, Silent Hill), and costume designer Wendy Partridge (who also dressed up the bizarre residents of Silent Hill, as well as the weirdoes on Del Toro’s Hellboy).
Then there’re artists Tim Bradstreet, who serves as Vampire “Look” Consultant, and Mike Mignola, who serves as Visual Consultant. (Mignola would, of course, collaborate with Del Toro again for the Hellboy films.)
Tippett Studios (founded by special effects wizard Phil Tippett) then provides creature effects, bringing the film’s Reapers—vampires who feed on other vampires—to hideous, hellish life.
With all this top caliber talent behind the camera, Blade II looks effin' fan(g)tastic (sorry), and feels like you’ve walked straight into a Vampire role-playing game, with a whole lotta guns and testosterone, of course.

And in front of the camera, you’ve got the one-two Big Baddie punch of Thomas Kretschmann and Luke Goss, as vampire ancient, Overlord Eli Damaskinos, and Reaper Jared Nomak, respectively. This pair bring the necessary gravity to their antagonists’ roles that make the film’s bad guys substantial and worthy opponents, with a presence that cannot be ignored nor dismissed.
Kretschmann would, of course, go on to appear in Roman Polanski’s The Pianist and Peter Jackson’s King Kong, while 80’s music junkies may—or may not—recall Goss as part of the duo, Bros. (Goss returns to Del Toro-landia as Prince Nuada in Hellboy II: The Golden Army.)

Anther key performer is Ron Perlman, as Bloodpack member, Reinhardt. Perlman had previously worked on Del Toro’s debut feature Cronos, and would, like Mike Mignola, re-team with the director for the Hellboy films. As part of the Bloodpack, Perlman’s Reinhardt has been training two long and hard years to take down Blade, only to have to work alongside him, to deal with the Reaper problem. The macho antagonism between Reinhardt and Blade make for some interesting and amusing moments in Blade II.
Among the Bloodpack, you’ll also find Donnie Yen, as Snowman. Yen, is of course known for his work on the Hong Kong martial arts scene. On Blade II, Yen also handles the martial arts choreography, resulting in some awesome fight sequences, the best in fact, in the Blade trilogy. (Yen would subsequently be seen as Sky in Yimou Zhang‘s visually ravishing Ying Xiong (Hero). This year he headlines Wilson Yip‘s Dao Huo Xian (Flash Point), and next year, Gordon Chan’s highly-anticipated remake of the supernatural thriller, Painted Skin, which revolves around “a vampire-like woman who eats the skins and hearts of her lovers.” Yum.)

But for all those impressive pluses, there is a rather glaring minus, in Leonor Varela, who plays Damaskinos’ daughter, Nyssa. At this juncture, I’d like to point out that in the old tongue, “Nyssa” means “She Who Does Not Know How To Act.”
It’s sad that Varela is given one of the bigger supporting roles in Blade II, as her performance is far from convincing. Kretschmann and Goss manage to emote far better from beneath Nosferatu-like make-up appliances than Varela does with her flawless, God-given skin.
Still, even with that drawback—and some sequences where the CGI isn’t quite pixel-perfect—Blade II is still light years better than either Norrington’s original, or Goyer’s Blade: Trinity.

That singular moment, early on in Blade II, when Snipes leaps off a rooftop, and the camera twists and turns along with him in his rapid descent to the street below, then tags along with the bullet as it speeds towards an escaping vampire, is the moment when it all fell into place for me. In that bravura, CGI-assisted move, Del Toro pulled me onto the kinetic ride that is Blade II, instantly imparting an instinctual knowledge that I could trust him, because he knew exactly what he was doing.
And he did.
This is one of the few Marvel movies that actually has the brazen and ballsy energy of the best comic books out there, and in this day and age, should serve as an important touchstone, when audiences seem content to allow limp entries like Ghost Rider and the Fantastic Four films to actually turn a profit.
Thus far, this also remains Del Toro’s best Hollywood movie to date. We will, of course, have to re-evaluate after Hellboy II: The Golden Army, but until then, you’d do well to take Blade II in, ‘cause Del Toro slathers enough butter, blood, and adrenaline on this popcorn movie to make it all worth your while.

Parting shot: Reviews of Blade: Trinity, Ghost Rider, the Fantastic Four movies, Guillermo Del Toro’s El Laberinto Del Fauno (Pan’s Labyrinth), the Hellboy animated film, Sword of Storms, as well as Hideo Nakata’s The Ring Two and David S. Goyer’s The Invisible (both of which were shot by Blade II cinematographer Gabriel Beristain), can be found in the Archive.

(Blade II OS courtesy of impawards.com.)

EL LABERINTO DEL FAUNO (PAN’S LABYRINTH) (Review)

Ever since I saw Guillermo Del Toro’s strange little vampire film Cronos, I knew this was a filmmaker I needed to keep my eyes on. And over the years, he has not disappointed.

After Cronos, the director had his first brush with Hollywood with Mimic. A flawed creature feature marred by studio interference, Mimic was still nonetheless recognizable as the work of an evolving storyteller.
Del Toro then went on to El Espinazo Del Diablo (The Devil’s Backbone), a ghost story set in an orphanage in 1939 Spain.
This quietly chilling tale was quickly followed by his second Hollywood feature, Blade II. Popcorn movie, yes. But this was popcorn laced with buckets of butter, blood, and adrenaline, and was far superior than its predecessor, Stephen Norrington’s Blade.
Working with comic book artist Mike Mignola on Blade II then led to Hellboy, the film adaptation of Mignola’s comic book of the same name.
Then, last year brought us what many (including myself) consider his best work to date: the darkly magickal El Laberinto Del Fauno (Pan’s Labyrinth).

Set in 1944 Spain, El Laberinto Del Fauno tells the tale of Ofelia (Ivana Baquero, who won a Goya1 for Breakthrough Performance), whose widowed mother Carmen (Aridna Gil) has recently married one Captain Vidal (Sergi Lopez, known for doing light romantic comedies). Vidal has his heavily pregnant wife and stepdaughter transported to the outpost he is commandant of, an outpost beset by the activities of a band of rebels, covertly being helped by a couple of the camp’s insiders: Mercedes (Maribel Verdu) and Dr. Ferreiro (Alex Angulo, who worked with Pedro Almodovar on Carne Tremula—Live Flesh).
And as socio-political turmoil rages around her, book-loving Ofelia discovers that there is another facet to the world she lives in, a facet of magick and fairies and ancient fauns, who reveal what could very well be her secret destiny.

Mining the Alice in Wonderland template and placing it in the context of a country torn by civil war, Del Toro takes us deep into the maze of a child’s life, a child whose world is undergoing upheaval, just as the larger world around her is experiencing the wracking pains of a global war. And in doing so, he does what every director should do: tell us a moving, involving story that is, ultimately, about something more than just the narrative, and, in the process of storytelling, shows us something we’ve never seen before.

For those who may be inclined to dismiss El Laberinto Del Fauno as a frivolous work of fantasy, understand that the “real world” elements of the film—particularly the rebels fighting for a cause they are putting their lives on the lines for—are treated with the utmost seriousness. One only need see Lopez’s coldly cruel Captain Vidal dealing with a suspected insurgent using only a wine bottle to be convinced that this is not a whimsical children’s movie.

And as for Del Toro showing the audience cinematic sights heretofore unseen, three words.
The Pale Man.
For my money, the Pale Man is one of the creepiest movie characters to have graced the silver screen in 2006. (He, along with the assorted residents of Silent Hill, made last year a year when the darkened theater once more became a place of unease and dread.)

Though Del Toro’s work has always displayed elements of the fantastic, in his non-Hollywood work (Cronos, El Espinazo Del Diablo, and El Laberinto Del Fauno), it is apparent that however scary his ghosts and vampires and fauns are, what is far more terrifying are the forces of the mundane, the men whose world these creatures move through.

Coping with the horrors her world presents her with, Ofelia moves through the ritualized paces of the traditional Quest (three tasks to perform before she can come into her destiny), speeding her inexorably towards the film’s moving climax.
Just as we are witness to Ofelia’s journey through her own metaphorical labyrinth, so we see the other characters of the tale, navigating their own personal mazes as best they can, shedding blood and tears in equal measure, as they struggle towards some greater understanding of their lives.

And when we finally emerge at the film’s denouement, we are exposed to the savage, uncompromising beauty of the narrative’s end. This is a beauty which both ravages and scours, and yet, feels right somehow, as if there was no other way this story could have ended.
Standing there, with that cold knowledge now a part of us, we look back, yearning for a fleeting glimpse of a fairie’s wing, or the earthy smell of an ancient faun, wondering if there is any way we can return to our innocence and ignorance, but knowing we cannot.
For a lesson, once learned cannot (and should not) ever be forgot.

With El Laberinto Del Fauno, Del Toro has secured his place as a master storyteller on the stage of global cinema, racking up nominations and wins at the Goyas and the BAFTAs.2 It also garnered six Saturn nominations.3 And in a few days’ time, we’ll see if Oscar loves it too.4
Here’s hoping.

1 The Goyas are Spain’s equivalent of the Oscars. El Laberinto Del Fauno won 7 out of its 13 nominations. Aside from Breakthrough Performance, it won for Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Visual Effects, Film Editing, Sound, and Makeup and Hair Design.

2 Its BAFTA wins were Film Not in the English Language, Costume Design, and Make Up and Hair (3 out of 8 nominations).

3 Its Saturn nominations are for Best International Film (where it’s up against Gwoemul), Best Supporting Actor (Sergi Lopez, up against Superman Returns’ James Marsden), Best Performance by a Younger Actor (Ivana Baquero, up against Gwoemul’s Ah-sung Ko and Superman Returns’ Tristan Lake Leabu), Best Direction (where Del Toro is up against good friend Alfonso Cuaron, as well as Bryan Singer), Best Writing (where Del Toro bangs heads with Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris, for Superman Returns), and Best Make-up (going up against Slither and The Descent).
As you can see, I’m very conflicted when it comes to the Saturns…

4 Its 6 Oscar nominations are for Best Foreign Language Film, Best Original Screenplay, Achievement in Art Direction, Achievement in Cinematography, Achievement in Makeup, and Original Score.

Parting shot: It’s also up for two Independent Spirit Awards, including Best Picture.

(Originally posted 022307)