Blade: Trinity (2004) - David S. Goyer

Synopsis:

A group of desperate vampires go in search of Dracula so that they can stop the onslaught of the half breed Blade. When they find their saviour, Blade is forced to join with the Night Stalkers, a group of young vampire hunters. 

Blade. Blade is probably the biggest and baddest vampire/vampire hybrid/vampire hunter in the history of the game. It's obviously apparent that he makes the Twilight kids look like bitches when you look back at the ridiculous levels of cool that Wesley Snipes wreaked of as the Day Walker. After the slight disappointment of the latest Underworld is the vampire film dying out? It's kind of upsetting to see that Blade: Trinity, easily the worst of the trilogy, was still able to get across their protagonist as the best vampire in all fiction since Dracula. That's not to say the other elements of the film have anything on the Twilight franchise or Underworld: Awakening for that matter... ESPECIALLY concerning it's Dracula.

Drake here is not the antagonist I would have asked for. Maybe if a more capable actor had taken on the role... and the character had been written better.... and say the entire plot and script been written better... then I would have loved to see a clash between the original vampire and the half-breed. Unfortunately Dominic Purcell looks very uncomfortable in the iconic role and fails to bring the character to life. He's just impossibly stiff and he catches neither the haunting eloquence of the old greats, nor the badassery that they clearly (and wrongly) wanted to go for in Blade: Trinity. It could have been the story and mood the director and writer, David S. Goyer, was going for that let him down but Purcell was far from enjoyable to watch here. It probably didn't help that the rest of the lead vampire's along with Drake paled in comparison, both in terms of their diegetic strength or on screen presence, to Deacon Frost of Blade or Nomak and the reaper vampires of Blade 2. It was not working.

I feel sorry for Wesley Snipes actually. He's so great in his role that to see him slapped in the middle of this haphazard attempt to bring vampires into the 21^st century it must have been painful to sit through the final outcome. The line that really hit me hard was “She's making playlists. She likes to listen to MP3's when she hunts”... I mean really? REALLY?? What a stupidly ridiculous and un-cool thing to put into a film. When new technology and invention are at the very core all about making life easier for society, when you throw it about willy nilly to appeal to the snot-nose troglodyte teenagers who are stuck in the cyber world then you lose all the toughness, grit and solid feel that appeals to everyone in the real world. Didn't help that the line was spoken by Ryan Reynolds, a man who is somehow both funny and annoying, a combo which inevitably... is annoying. The funniest thing about the whole film was that Blade the character (the actual on-screen character!) was amazed at the crap that David S. Goyer had produced. “What... you amateurs are supposed to be helping me? You? Look at you... you're kids... you're not ready to role with this. I mean look at the way you dress.. what that supposed to be tactical? And what is this... what is that.. "Fuck you"? Its a joke huh. What the fuck is wrong with you? Y'all think this is a joke? You think this is a fucking sitcom?”. This outburst is just a small example of perfectly delivered dialogue which sets Snipes high and above his co-stars.

Overview:

Snipes is gold but the rest of film is stuck in 21^st century, which by the way isn't a good thing. It sacrifices any decent or interesting story for cheap attempts to appeal to a wider audience.

Rating:

★★