Blade II / YMMV - TV Tropes

Ass Pull:
- Even though the first film made it clear that Whistler shot himself to avoid becoming a vampire (which should have killed him even if he had already turned into a vampire), in this one he's revealed to have survived with little to no explanation.
- Many fans feel there's no appropriate context or Foreshadowing for Scud being The Mole.
Base-Breaking Character: The movie's fans are quite split on what to make of Scud. On the one hand, there are plenty of fans who consider him a poorly-written Plucky Comic Relief character incorporated as a forced attempt at trying to appeal to teenagers by acting as stereotypically "cool and hip" as possible (i.e. talks trash, listens to rap music, calls the eponymous anti-hero 'B,' and constantly has a joint in his mouth.) Others enjoy him if for no other reason than to see an early-in-his-career Norman Reedus ham it up like nobody's business. Even the reveal that he's The Mole has split the fanbase; some hate him for being a very incompetent villain whose betrayal came out of nowhere, while others love his Bloody Hilarious and well-deserved death scene too much to care.
Complete Monster: Eli Damaskinos is the Overlord of the Vampire Nation, and the true villain behind the Reaper outbreak. A believer in the pureblood rhetoric of vampires, Damaskinos schemes to create an entirely new race of vampires to overthrow and slaughter humanity and vamprekind alike, with Damaskinos as the progenitor of the new species. In his quest for this, Damaskinos oversees routine mass murder of humans to harvest their bloods in such quantities as to fill factory reservoirs, and Damaskinos personally bathes in large pools of his victims' blood. Willing to forego all semblance of empathy or humanity to achieve his desires, Damaskinos experimented on his own son Jared Nomak to turn him into a Reaper before targeting him for death, and Damaskinos later sends his daughter Nyssa and her elite squadron to die at Nomak's hands, uncaring of the swathes of life lost in the process so long as he can raise an entire brood of vampire children to be experimented upon.
Ensemble Dark Horse:
- Donnie Yen as Snowman, due to being a ninja and, well, to being Donnie Yen.
- Jared Nomak for a cool design, being the lead Reaper, and being played by Luke Goss.
Even Better Sequel: A large percentage of the Blade fanbase finds the sequel to be even better than the first one, appreciating its more stylized visuals, added humor and colorful cast of characters over the more grim and realistic original. Even those who don't find it superior to the original typically believe it is still a very worthy sequel.
Fan-Preferred Cut Content: In the script, Bloodpack member Verlaine is the vengeful twin sister of Raquel, who Blade kills at the beginning of the first movie. This was scrapped when the actress couldn't reprise the role, but some fans wish that they'd still been sisters (just not twins), and the original Teeth-Clenched Teamwork dynamics preserved there.
Fanon Discontinuity: The death of Nyssa, an Anti-Villain who has some good UST with Blade, is often ignored by fan fiction writers.
Fight Scene Failure: Although the film generally showcases impeccable choreography, the mook Blade back-kicks during the showdown against Reinhardt is sent flying away in stilted, painfully obvious Wire Fu action, which contrasts with the mostly wireless rest of the fights.
Franchise Original Sin: A few of the things that fans complained about in Blade: Trinity, like Blade being given a new sidekick and working with an entire team, got their start here. These new characters, however, didn't steal the spotlight from Blade, and Whistler at least remained an important character. The third film turned the new arrivals into a Spotlight-Stealing Squad and abruptly killed off Whistler, souring things for lots of fans.
Harsher in Hindsight:
- Scud offers Blade a joint, which he declines. Wesley Snipes would later cause problems on the shoot of Blade: Trinity by, amongst other things, staying in his trailer smoking weed.
- One of the DVD commentaries features Snipes and David S. Goyer. Hearing them joking around is sad knowing that they'd later fall out while making Blade Trinity.
Heartwarming Moment:
- When the unsentimental hard-ass Whistler desperately cries to a dying Blade "Don't you give up on me, boy! You didn't give up on me, and I'm not gonna give up on you!" you know that even he is capable of love.
- Nyssa's death, the only real sympathetic vampire in the series, she also makes the audience think about how pureblood vampires don't have a choice. It's obvious she and Blade have a thing, and she ends up dying. SPECTACULARLY.
Hilarious in Hindsight:
- Scud is often seen wearing a B.P.R.D shirt. Guillermo Del Toro would go straight from this movie to an adaptation of Hellboy.
- Luke Goss would go on portraying another nonhuman Anti-Villain with a Freudian Excuse, eventually Self-Made Orphan, in yet another second movie directed by Guillermo del Toro.
Magnificent Bastard: Prince Jared Nomak is the original heir to the empire of vampire Overlord Eli Damaskinos. After being experimented on by Damaskinos, Nomak becomes the progenitor of the Reaper strain, feral mutant vampires who feed on their civilized kin. Making his presence known after luring several vampires into a trap, Nomak leads his Reapers to attack other vampires, using the distraction to catch his sister Nyssa. Seeing the Daywalker Blade as a natural ally, Nomak sincerely tries to persuade him to join forces, while also sparing the life of Blade's mentor Whistler to reveal the truth about the Reapers' origins. Finally confronting and killing his monstrous father, Nomak also feeds on Nyssa at her behest and calmly accepts his own death at Blade's hands, thankful that his pain is over.
Moral Event Horizon: Bad enough that Damaskinos actually created the Reaper virus, but the fact that he used his own son as patient zero really sends him over the line.
Narm: The remark Reinhardt makes to Blade, "Can you blush?", was intended to be a racial slur, since Blade is black and it was based on a personal experience from Wesley Snipes.^note The character was originally envisioned as a racist skinhead, which didn't come across in the final film, thus making the line really random for some viewers.
Narm Charm: As mentioned below in Special Effects Failure, near the end of the fight between Blade Nyssa and Akkad, the final exchanges are shot from the side against bright floodlights with (pretty obvious) CGI doubles. It's called out on the commentary for looking like "Mortal Kombat", but if you're a fan of 2D fighting games like that, it can look like a deliberate and pretty well-made Shout-Out.
Signature Scene: The Alien Autopsy of the Reaper body is generally cited as the coolest scene of the film. A gorgeously crafted prop that the characters examine in detail. In one bit they drop a tiny bit of blood into the exposed chest and everything started pulsing again as though it was coming back to life.
Retroactive Recognition: Scud is played by Norman Reedus. If you didn't recognize him at the time from The Boondock Saints, you probably did after he started playing Daryl Dixon in The Walking Dead.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
- The Blood Pack was created to hunt and kill Blade, but the only time we see them, they have to team up with Blade against the Reavers. An entire movie featuring Blade being hunted instead of being the hunter would have been an interesting plot.
- It's also a shame that Jared and Nyssa never really get to talk to each other except at the end, given that they're siblings.
Special Effects Failure: While the maw effects don't look too bad, some of the SFX haven't aged too well, such as the dust effects on some vampire (particularly in the beginning when a camera focus on one Nomak kills). Some CGI was dodgy even at the time of the film's release, such as the shot of Blade fighting Nyssa against the "God lights," which the director lambasts in his commentary track.
Too Cool to Live: Snowman, just like every other American movie role Donnie Yen has had.
Visual Effects of Awesome: When the Reaper's maw is revealed for the first time in all its horrific glory it looks amazing. Even better, there's a Reaper autopsy later, with the maw faithfully reproduced physically, in horrifically gooey detail.

YMMV / Blade II

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