But I liked Blade a lot, and was enjoying Blade 2 until that WWF/WWE style fight at the end… I have no idea WTF those people were thinking with that. Completely ruined the movie for me.

I enjoy action or scifi oriented stories about vampires. I loved the first Blade film. I’m a big fan of Joss Whedon’s Buffy and Angel shows. I own Kindred: the Embraced on DVD. I read the first seven or eight Laurell K. Hamilton novels about Anita Blake. I’ve even written some fiction with vampires in the stories. So I would probably be considered by a Hollywood executive to be a part of the target audience for movies like Blade 2, Blade Trinity, Underworld, and Underworld: Evolution. After all, I just said that I loved the first Blade movie, and I can also tell you that I was really excited by the Underworld trailer.

There are however, two things that I am desperately tired of seeing in vampire films. The first is Eastern Europe , and the second is the “original vampire.”

Let’s start with the Blade films. The first one had an interesting tension between the born vampires who liked the status quo and the turned vampires who wanted to shake things up. There was depth to the vampire culture evidenced by the spoken vampire language, written vampire text, and the use of glyphs on both familiars and safe houses. There was both an ancient prophecy at play and modern computing power at use. There were hints at a sort of Zen Buddhist philosophy for our hero. Characters and extras in the film were just as likely to be Asian or African American as they were white. The bad guys either conducted business, or wielded power, or threw parties, but they all existed in a larger world.

Now, what do we have in Blade 2? Most of the film is a long, dark monster hunt in Eastern Europe. A character that had a meaningful death in the first film is unrealistically still alive. The team of vampires that have trained to hunt down Blade seem like little more than a list role playing game stats. Each one has a special weapon or look, but none of them have a story or much of a personality. None of them (or anyone else in the film) have desires or goals outside of the points of the plot. There are a few interesting ideas, but no real depth to the world or the people.

Blade Trinity was marginally better than the second one thanks to a little bit of help from Ryan Reynolds who plays a supporting role as another slayer. There were a couple of welldone scenes (notably the shot of a vampire giving the sun the finger right at the opening of the film). However, the bad guys are all Eastern European, which seems to be enough of a character idea for the writer or director to avoid doing anything else with them. On top of that, they have to go and dig up the “original vampire” a.k.a. Dracula, who serves as one of the most unoriginal vampire villains I have seen on screen. The gang of slayers working together look, for a brief moment, like they might bring in some much needed variety to the film, but then they all get killed. There is a long and drawn out fight scene at the end during which I never worried for the hero’s safety despite the almost god-like power wielded by the villain. Here’s another hint to film makers: god-like power is almost always boring in a fight scene. Less is more. Try it out sometime.

Now we come to Underworld. The preview looked really cool. There is a secret war between vampires and werewolves, and we get stylish glimpses of the fight set to exciting music. However, once again, we have vampires (and now werewolves) with no culture, no involvement in anything except the points of the plot, and no depth to their identities. I never got a sense that any of them did anything other than stand around the vampire mansion and look pale all day. There was also hardly any variety in the casting. Are there no vampires or werewolves that have a different ethnic background? The movie wasn’t terrible, but it failed to capture my imagination.

In the last month, I have watched the preview for the sequel, Underworld: Evolution. Where does the movie look like it takes place? Frakking Eastern Europe. Who is the villain? The mother-frakking “original vampire.” Does the preview convey a sense of people or places that exist within a larger world? If anything, there appears to be less of that than in the first film, but hey, the special effects look good…

The one thing that seems clear is that the movie executives involved didn’t look at these last four vampire films as real films. They looked at them simply as vampire films – as if by having a sci fi or fantasy element, the movie gave up its need for the elements and creativity of good story telling.

Of course, this is all just my opinion…

We’ll see…

As for sequels, I think that many sequels are released in theatres more to give them status as “legitimate” films, even though they’re straight-to-DVD quality. And that’s where they’ll make their money, too - in DVD sales and rentals. The studio looks at a script and says, we can film this on the cheap and recoup our investment at Blockbuster; the movie is released and disappears in less than a month; then is the top rental through Netflix. And that generates a lot of buzz.

Plus there are those movie viewers like Pete- he finds what he likes in the movie, knowing it’s not going to be “2001″. Who’s to say that’s not right?

And I think Evo needs to lay off the candy canes.

They could have toned down Kraven’s heavy breathing, though. I kept expecting him to take a hit off an inhaler…

I’m looking forward to the sequel.

Hot chick, big guns, monsters… what’s not to like?

About the only gripe I have with it, actually, is one I have with 99% of all werewolf movies. I’m a werewolf traditionalist and prefer their two halves to be separate. One minute you’re a very normal looking human, the next you’re a mostly normal looking wolf (bit larger, bit meaner looking than a real wolf) who can only be killed by silver (or magic if that’s involved). These two legged half-wolf-half-man things just aren’t right. But as I said, that’s a gripe I have with the vast majority of werewolf portrayals.

I’ve only watched it once since we got it… I’m working from home today… Hmm…

I should get a frakking medal for that.

I’m looking forward to seeing the sequel.

And yes, I liked Van Heilsing too. At least I’m consistant.

Talk about crap sequels, the three following the first Highlander were utter garbage. Van Pebbles (sp?) doing the voice of the bad guy from the first one, can’t think of his name right now but began with a K. Almost walked out of the theater on that one.

Save your money for “Snakes on a Plane”. This is going to be a hoot.

Besides, in the scifi realm, it’s usually the first movie that gets ignored, and when it makes a bunch of money (Matrix) or makes an impact (Highlander), then the suits start paying too much attention because they want to be able to boast that they had a finger in the making of the sequels… which is of course why they usually suck.

I saw part of a trailer for X-Men 3 last night, but since the same people from 1 and 2 aren’t making it, I reserve judgment until after I see it. It looks pretty, though.

First of all, Roger Ebert should be prohibited from watching any scifi movie. He’s not a fan of the genre, and what makes good scifi is not necessarily the same thing as what makes good “mass consumption” films.

And perhaps therein lies the secret? What if the first movie is supposed to suck, on purpose? Perhaps that gets the morons in-charge to turn a blind eye to the pre-negotiated sequel, letting the director do some quality work for fans of the genre?

Or maybe I’ve eaten too much sugar in the last three days and am delusional. Hey look! Evo’s an optimist.