2002 - BLADE 2, sequel to Blade (what else would it be).

Wesley Snipes is back as Eric Brooks aka Blade a sort of half man, half vampire.  This being a sequel to the 1998 film.  In the first film he joined forces with Rhodes Scholar, and Country Music Hall of Famer Kris Kristofferson to kill a bunch of modern day vampires.  In Blade II Snipes and Kristofferson are back this time teamed with a vampire SWAT squad to kill some sort of super vampire.

There's lots of action and unsurprisingly mucho blood spewing everywhere, after all this is a film about vampires. Frankly the story is kind of dumb but what the film has going for it is the director Guillermo Del Toro who gravitates to all this horror movie stuff since he grew up with it.  It doesn't hurt that Wesley Snipes has in real life a 5th degree black belt in karate, he looks like he actually knows how to karate chop super vampires.

 

I guess if you are looking for a film with a lots of action and blood along with those creepy touches that Guillermo Del Toro brings to his films you've found the right film.  Del Toro is a master of this stuff and really keeps the film zipping along from one well done action piece to another.

 

Blade actually started out as part of a comic book series from Marvel and Marvel has  been trying to figure out an approach to remaking the film.  With all the violence in this film the remake has been in "developmental hell" for some time.  Marvel superhero films are extremely family friendly and you can be sure that Mom and Dad aren't about to take little Bobby and Suzie to a film that features super vampires chewing the necks off of their victims.

The film was written by David S. Goyer, the running time is 117 minutes.

2013 - PACIFIC RIM, the giant robot vs monsters film or calling Toho studios

Nice try but Del Toro didn't really get there. The film is basically an updating of one of those Toho Godzilla movies where all the monsters show up together to stomp on cities. For all the love and attention lavished on Pacific Rim by Guillermo Del Toro this film at times tends to meander with Del Toro spending a lot of time on character development to give the film a little more substance sometimes at the expense of the action.

The big issue at the time of release was that there have been three Transformers films so the giant robot movie genre has been kind of done to death. 

Running time 132 minutes. Travis Beacham and Del Toro wrote the screenplay.

2006 - PAN'S LABYRINTH, updating Hans Christian Anderson's, The Little Match Girl, with lots of blood and violence

The director Guillermo del Toro, is an interesting guy.  He's very talented when it comes to making movies.  He knows how to stage and photograph a scene.  He  is up on the latest technological tricks to integrate special effects with live action.

Del Toro spends a lot of time working on his films to get them perfect.  But story wise he hasn't been exactly aiming for a Citizen Kane or a Schindler's List.

Here is a partial list of his films:

Cronos - a vampire story about a guy trying to destroy mankind.
Blade 2 -  vampires trying to destroy mankind.
Mimic -  giant icky insects living in the sewers trying to destroy mankind.
Hellboy - comic book about a demon from hell fighting off monsters trying to destroy mankind.
Hellboy II - see above, more of the same still trying to destory mankind.

Then there's the film Pan's Labyrinth,  his attempt at sort of respectability by filming a very dark fairy tale.

In Franco's Spain during World War II, a young girl lives in the woods with her mother and evil soldier stepfather.  She meets a fawn who tells her she is the queen of the fairies ( or something like that).  If she fulfills three magical challenges she will live in the fairy world ( or something like that).

 

The idea appears to be to contrast the fairy world with the cold cruel world of man.  This is really hammered on with the character of the evil step father.  His job is to put down any resistance to the fascist Spanish government.  He goes about this by smashing people in the face with hammers, sawing their limbs off and just generally being an unpleasant guy.

 

Obviously the fairy world would be a happier place to be, except that world apparently has monsters who like to bite the heads off of cute little fairies and chase cute little girls around as well, that doesn't exactly seem like a fun place to hang out.

As much time and attention as del Toro spends on creating his fantasy world, he probably spends even more time on figuring out ways to show people being shot, stabbed and tortured.  The film was rated "R" when it was released, so going into it I was aware that the film was going to be kind of dark.  However I was unprepared for the level of nastiness that I was about to watch.

I get that the real world can be a harsh and cruel place, I don't need del Toro to tell me that I have cable news.  However in this incredibly pointless film, fairyland isn't much better.

119 minutes.