BLADE: TRINITY - 2004
New Line Cinema
Ratings: USA: R |
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Imagine being a screenwriter. Pretty cool, isn't it? You're a serious player now. You
write a script and give it to a director and he turns it into a great
movie. Which is nice, but he seems to be getting most of the credit for
turning your words into a great movie. So they ask you to write a sequel
and you do and the studio gives it to another director who turns it into
another cool movie. Again, the director gets most of the credit. So despite
your success as a screenwriter you find yourself wanting more. The studio
asks you to write yet another sequel and this time, you say, "I want to direct! I'm ready!"
Is this a good idea or a bad idea?
BLADE: TRINITY was written and directed by David S. Goyer. Mr. Goyer wrote BLADE and BLADE II (as
well as THE PUPPET MASTERS, CROW: CITY OF ANGELS, and DARK CITY). BLADE: TRINITY is only his second time directing (the first was a drama called ZIGZAG, which Goyer also wrote).
The story opens with a helicopter landing in what we are told is the Syrian Desert. The heavily armed group that gets out is covered head-to-toe (including thick goggles) to protect them from the desert sun (one
guy even gives the sun the finger). Clearly, they are vampires.
And yet they don't move like vampires. They climb into the depths of the
pyramid they are exploring slowly and carefully, never displaying evidence
of superhuman strength and reflexes. Odd.
The party is lead by Danica Talos (Parker Posey: FRANKENSTEIN
[2004] [TV], SCREAM 3, DEAD CONNECTION)
and includes a very large henchman named Jarko Grimwood (Paul Michael Levesque - also known as Pro Wrestler "Triple H"). They don't search long before an armor-clad monster erupts from the floor.
We cut to a warehouse in a large city. Explosions set the building on fire and vampires
scatter. Blade (Wesley Snipes: BLADE, BLADE II)
appears and the action here is very cool. With a variety of silver bullets
and silver edged weapons, Blade the Daywalker, a human-vampire hybrid,
chases the bloodsuckers across town. This turns into a car chase when
Blade's black Blademobile is delivered by his best (and only) friend, Whistler (Kris Kristofferson: BLADE, BLADE
II, PLANET OF THE APES [2001]). But just when it looks like Blade
has once again saved the day, the cops show up. One of the bad guys wasn't
a vampire - he was a human familiar (slave to a vampire master). That leaves a body and Blade is wanted for murder.
Attention is the last thing Blade wants. He needs to work in the shadows but that
is not to be. Eventually he is apprehended by the FBI and brought in for
questioning under serious restraint. The interrogation does not go well,
especially when the rescue arrives. Whistler's long lost daughter Abigail
(Jessica Biel: CELLULAR, THE
TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE [2003]) and her friend Hannibal King
(Ryan Reynolds) show up with cool weapons
and lots of martial arts which allows them to take on vampires in hand-to-hand
combat just like Blade. Also odd.
Abigail and Hannibal (who call their group the Night Stalkers)
bring Blade to their hideout. The rest of the group includes a hacker
/ electronics expert (played by stand-up comic Patton Oswalt), a blind genetic engineer (Natasha
Lyonne: MODERN VAMPIRES, THE DEVIL'S REJECTS) and the blind lady's 8 year old daughter (who might as well be wearing a T-shirt that says, "Hey, Vampires! Please kidnap me!"). Hannibal brings Blade up to date on what Danica found
in the desert. I won't say much more except that the armored monster turned
out to be a well-known vampire who you'd think would be in Transylvania
instead of the Middle East.
The point being that Blade has another confrontation with another super vampire.
That's not necessarily a bad thing as long as it's done well, but it's
not. In fact it's time I tell you the truth: this is not a good movie.
I really wanted to like it because I liked the first two and I love the
character but what is, is.
And part of what's wrong here can only be explained with a VAMPIRE
!!!SCIENCE MOMENT!!!:
One of the defining characteristics of vampires is that their strength
and reflexes are far superior to humans. The combination of their speed
and great strength is what makes them such deadly predators. Blade has
these abilities as well, which is why he can fight vampires hand-to-hand.
But Abigail and Hannibal are just ordinary human beings (well,
Hannibal had an odd past but he's an ordinary human now). So I
don't care how strong their Kung Fu is, they should NOT be able
to get in fist fights with vampires. And yet they do, time and again,
with no explanation as to how this is possible.
Continued at SCIENCE MOMENT/Blade: Trinity
Some of the action is excellent, but as long as we're talking about action I must
tell you that actor Ryan Reynolds as Hannibal just didn't pull it off.
I never really believed him as an action star and his scenes suffer for
it. Jessica Biel, on the other hand, totally pulled it off.
The movie as a whole is a mess, with scenes that by themselves are kind of cool
but that together make no sense. There truly are some cool scenes and
Hannibal has lots of funny sarcastic lines, but the ending is disappointing
and what you were told it means earlier turns out to be wrong or different
or who knows? I sure don't. And I don't go to the movies to feel confused. BLADE: TRINITY gets two shriek girls.
This review
copyright 2004 E.C.McMullen Jr.
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