Blade: Trinity

Title: Blade: Trinity
Director: David S. Goyer
Cast: Wesley Snipes, Ryan Reynolds, Jessica Biel
Year: 2004
MPAA: Rated R for strong pervasive violence and language, and some sexual content.
Date of Review: April 29, 2005

"Blade", one of Marvel’s darker superheros, debuted on the big screen in 1998, completely revamped (pardon the pun) from a Mexican vampire slayer with a few wooden stakes, to a hip, cool, tech-savvy Wesley Snipes with a great sword. Then in 2002, visionary Mexican director and admitted comic book maniac, Guillermo del Toro, brought to the screen his vision of the character with the wildly popular "Blade 2", in which the titular anti-hero teamed up with a ruthless team of vampires to hunt a new breed of monster that kills humans and vampires indiscriminately. Both of these films were written by David S. Goyer, who has penned almost every Marvel Comic film adaptation since "Spider-Man", so when it was announced early last year that he would not only write but make his directorial debut with "Blade: Trinity", naturally, many were excited.

"Blade: Trinity" stars Ryan Reynolds and Jessica Biel (among others) alongside Wesley Snipes and Kris Kristofferson, who reprise their roles as Blade and his partner Whistler, respectively. It begins with Blade being captured by the FBI after accidentally killing a human who was posing as a vampire. He is soon rescued by Hannibal King (played by Ryan Reynolds in a performance that’s frighteningly similar to his character Van Wilder), and Abigail Whistler, played by Jessica Biel. Unfortunately, the casting directors seem to think that the only pre-requisite of being a vampire hunter is that you’re on the list of "Most Beautiful People in the World".

The movie seems to be a mixture of the previous two films, while also trying to incorporate a plot about Dracula. However, through the entire 2-hour length of the film, it is hard to tell whether the Dracula storyline is meant to be a main feature in the film, or simply a subplot. Not to mention the fact that Dracula looked like a strange mix of the Lord of Darkness from "Legend", and something off a bad episode of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". Combine that with vampire dogs (yes...vampire dogs) and you have some pretty unconvincing villains at hand.

The problems with "Blade: Trinity" don’t lie in the concept, but in the execution. The idea of Blade fighting Dracula is one that was inevitable in a franchise such as this, and the fact that it was left to the final film had a lot of fans eager to see what would be done. Instead of creating an original mix of action and horror, however, it is simply a re-hash of the plots of the previous two films, with a horrendous amount of product placement. Jessica Biel’s character serves absolutely no purpose, other than advertising iPods. Yes, the personal MP3 sound system is advertised heavily in this film, showing Jessica Biel not only loading songs onto it on two occasions, but before she fights hoards of undead villains, there are quick cuts to her placing headphones in her ears and hitting PLAY.

It’s not that "Blade: Trinity" is a bad movie in any respect. In fact, it has some scenes of stunning originality, and Ryan Reynolds has a few one-liners that are quite funny, if only for the fact that they are so inappropriate. But this film could have been so much more. Seeing as how it is the first Marvel film to complete a trilogy, as well as close the entire franchise, it would have been nice to have gone out with a bang...but instead we got a barely audible thud.

5.5/10