C | Vampire hunter Blade gets new allies to take on a resurrected Dracula. Directed by David S. Goyer Starring Wesley Snipes, Jessica Biel, and Ryan Reynolds Review by Jon Kissel |
Superhero franchises in the early 21st century could not seem to make their third entries work. Spider-Man 3 was overstuffed and cringey while X-Men 3 turned to hackiest hack Brett Ratner. Blade Trinity fits squarely within that pattern but worse, as it’s a film enslaved to current trends in blockbuster movies and music with an eye toward future sequels and a lack of any motivating factor beyond the quest for more money. The two earlier Blade films at least had a minimal amount of underlying drama, whereas this is all meaningless snark and commerce. Blade Trinity exists for the funny behind-the-scenes nonsense, at least if Patton Oswalt is to be believed, and that’s about all the entertainment value provided by this pathetic limp to the end credits.
David S. Goyer takes over directing for Blade Trinity in addition to completing the sole writer trifecta for the franchise. Goyer will go on to write for Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy and Zach Snyder’s DC work, respectable-ish credits that become masterpieces in relief to his abysmal directing work on no-name horror flicks. There is little that’s memorable in this entire film, excepting fuzzy recollections of silly details like half-unbuttoned shirts or garlic farts. The epitome of Goyer’s laziness is the antagonist of Blade Trinity, wherein it’s easy to imagine him pacing around a home office until inspiration strikes and club rat Dracula is born. What if Dracula, but now? A bad idea can be enlivened in the execution but actor Dominic Purcell’s not the guy to do it, nor is Goyer the guy to succeed in the footsteps of a dozen better directors in depicting the vampire of vampires. Blade Trinity’s ‘Drake’ is little more than a tougher enemy with a shape-shifting power he gets very little mileage out of.
Goyer’s influences, such as they are, have none of the twists or homages that Guillermo Del Toro brought to Blade II, a film infected by the Matrix but made memorable by Del Toro’s affinity for creature design. Here, Goyer doubles down on the Matrix, tosses in some Predator, and adds more nitrous-fueled car chases because Fast and the Furious is now a thing. He fails to improve or even meet the standard of Del Toro’s goofy Blood Pack with his Gen-X vampire hunting group, Ryan Reynolds’ Hannibal King is a leaden attempt at humor from an actor who, at this point, hasn’t figured out his ideal onscreen persona, and Jessica Biel is a walking Apple commercial or she would be if she had any appeal beyond the obvious kind. It’s a near thing of which sequel play, Hannibal or Whistler’s Daughter, is harder to take. Biel at least sticks to the stoic tone that Blade has established while Reynolds’ meta nonsense, starting with an opening voiceover that makes fun of a hypothetical viewer for thinking crosses would take down a vampire while of course silver and garlic do, is unbearable.
The only actor elevating their material is Parker Posey’s sub-antagonist Danica Talos, not because Goyer cracked the code on her character but because she’s leaning heavily into what little is there. Her glued-down hair look makes Posey almost unrecognizable, but she plays an arrogant bully so well in previous films like Dazed and Confused that this is a factory setting for her. Posey provides one of the only moments of nuanced emotion in Blade Trinity where she demands her male cohorts let her see Drake and saves any reservation about it til she’s alone in the elevator. It’s not a big moment, but Blade Trinity offers so little. Goyer tries out his horror chops to mild success with the sequence of Dracula taking out the Nightstalkers, an admittedly creepy sequence that owes something to Silence of the Lambs. The film also deserves some amount of credit for hitting the two-fer of both baby tossing and dog defenestration.
Blade Trinity is an ignominious end to what had been a perfectly fine franchise. No unique ideas are animating the material beyond the impulse to get some hot young (white) stars into the action, neither of whom contribute much of anything. All three films are locked in their era as representative of the shitty music culture of the late-90’s to early 2000’s. No matter how dramatically Biel brings her headphones to her ears, whatever thrash metal garbage she’s living to isn’t going to work. Like a vampire giving the sun the finger, Blade Trinity is worthy of my disdain. D+
Goyer’s influences, such as they are, have none of the twists or homages that Guillermo Del Toro brought to Blade II, a film infected by the Matrix but made memorable by Del Toro’s affinity for creature design. Here, Goyer doubles down on the Matrix, tosses in some Predator, and adds more nitrous-fueled car chases because Fast and the Furious is now a thing. He fails to improve or even meet the standard of Del Toro’s goofy Blood Pack with his Gen-X vampire hunting group, Ryan Reynolds’ Hannibal King is a leaden attempt at humor from an actor who, at this point, hasn’t figured out his ideal onscreen persona, and Jessica Biel is a walking Apple commercial or she would be if she had any appeal beyond the obvious kind. It’s a near thing of which sequel play, Hannibal or Whistler’s Daughter, is harder to take. Biel at least sticks to the stoic tone that Blade has established while Reynolds’ meta nonsense, starting with an opening voiceover that makes fun of a hypothetical viewer for thinking crosses would take down a vampire while of course silver and garlic do, is unbearable.
The only actor elevating their material is Parker Posey’s sub-antagonist Danica Talos, not because Goyer cracked the code on her character but because she’s leaning heavily into what little is there. Her glued-down hair look makes Posey almost unrecognizable, but she plays an arrogant bully so well in previous films like Dazed and Confused that this is a factory setting for her. Posey provides one of the only moments of nuanced emotion in Blade Trinity where she demands her male cohorts let her see Drake and saves any reservation about it til she’s alone in the elevator. It’s not a big moment, but Blade Trinity offers so little. Goyer tries out his horror chops to mild success with the sequence of Dracula taking out the Nightstalkers, an admittedly creepy sequence that owes something to Silence of the Lambs. The film also deserves some amount of credit for hitting the two-fer of both baby tossing and dog defenestration.
Blade Trinity is an ignominious end to what had been a perfectly fine franchise. No unique ideas are animating the material beyond the impulse to get some hot young (white) stars into the action, neither of whom contribute much of anything. All three films are locked in their era as representative of the shitty music culture of the late-90’s to early 2000’s. No matter how dramatically Biel brings her headphones to her ears, whatever thrash metal garbage she’s living to isn’t going to work. Like a vampire giving the sun the finger, Blade Trinity is worthy of my disdain. D+
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