Using footage shot during the filming process of Blade II as well as contributions from the main members of the crew, this documentary follows the thought process in the making. The film looks at the design of the sets, the look of the film, the use of extras, the design of the costumes, the choreography of the fights, the use of effects and wires, the score and use of music and other aspects are all discussed. The film's first half relies heavily on contributions from del Toro and several other of the production crew, but later it uses members of the cast as well.
Weighting in at almost an hour and a half, this documentary was either going to be interesting or it was going to be very dull heck, it was almost as long as the film itself! I'm pleased to report that the film was not dull and was pretty consistently interesting. The film deals with the costumes and shows the various sketches and thought processes involved and actually manages to make the subject interesting. The set building aspect is not as interesting and it is clear when it begins with someone saying 'the main reason we went to Prague was cost plus they have great set builders' and then lists other films shot in Prague, beginning the list with 'Slaughterhouse Five'! The filming process is quite interesting but lacks good contributions and is far too general.
The background to the fight scenes is rather dull and it only serves to show just how workmanlike the shooting of them can be. The stuff on the score uses too much footage of them discussing the music on a very noisy set where really a couple of short, concise interviews would have been much more interesting. Generally this is part of the problem with the documentary it is consistently interesting but it doesn't have very much stuff in it that is REALLY interesting. There are no funny stories, there was nothing that really stuck in my mind and there was nothing that made me say 'wow, I never knew that'. It was still interesting, because I know very little about how to make a film and it's interesting to me to see the process in progress, but it needed at least two or three bits that would really stick in your mind.
Overall this is an interesting documentary that is worth the 90 odd minutes to watch some bits are overlong and a little dull (the score bit is just onset footage and lasts way too long) but it is generally OK. The film relies heavily on del Toro for contributions and he does well to talk about a lot of subjects. Snipes is the main cast member to contribute but he has little to say (and it was just promo footage) and Donnie Yen is the only other one involved, but his comments made me feel a lot better about how little he was on screen in the actual movie. Despite it being interesting it really lacks bigger moments of interest that it needed to have to really stand out as a good documentary. It is interesting but I needed more.
