Rated R for two tiny scenes of sexual content…and enough blood to fill the Nile river in Egypt. Wow. I have to say that I absolutely loved this movie. It picks up right where the first one left off*, and takes everything we know and (maybe) love from the first film and continues the story. That’s what I loved about the first movie…it’s strict adherence to it’s own mythology.

I just loved this movie so much…there’s humor, there’s violence and it tells an incredible vicarious story that I really enjoyed. Because this is a science-fiction/fantasy film^✝, the highlight should not be the actors, the music or the directing…it’s the special effects and the story that matter the most to these films. And what was my personal favorite special effect? Actually there were two: the CGI transformations from human form to vampire or werewolf or hybrid (especially the vampire eyes…) and the shots of blood flowing out of a vampires mouth after a fresh kill . To judge a science-fiction/fantasy film based on acting or directing feels like an intellectually bankrupt exercise to me…it seems like you’re trying to pass off a personal distaste for the story presented by focusing on something insignificant. What does this all mean? I liked the acting, the direction given to the actors, the cinematography, the music, the special effects but most importantly of all: I LOVE THE STORY! So, that being said for the umpteenth time, what else is there to say, but to urge you to see the movie only if you enjoyed the original. If the first one didn’t strike your fancy, DO NOT see this film…you wouldn’t enjoy it.

*This is exactly what The Matrix Reloaded did for The Matrix…picked up right where it left off and finished the tale it was telling…several years after The Matrix was originally released.

^✝A Question of Genre: Are werewolves and vampires strictly classified as “horror” creations? Because the movie itself doesn’t seem like science fiction…so is it science fantasy? It’s not straight-up fantasy…I just don’t know anymore. Well, if you look at Van Helsing and The Mummy, you see Stephen Sommers taking the classic horror creations and using them as the villains of action films. So I guess those movies and the Underworld series would fall under the newly christened genre of fantasy/action films (though I think they would be just action films in any official listing by genre).