2004 / 113 Minutes / R
Reviewed by Dale Nauertz

Not every movie that spawns a sequel needs to tie it up in a trilogy. Take the “Godfather” films, for example. The first two “Godfather” films are great (I’m not saying they’re the greatest movies of all time, like everyone else seems to think, but they’re definitely damned good) and while the third one isn’t entirely terrible (though there are some moments) it really doesn’t add anything to the series either. There are really no themes in that film that weren’t already explored, and to better effect, in the first two films. Therefore, “Godfather 3”, while an okay film, is pretty much redundant. It’s unnecessary.

While the first two “Blade” movies weren’t of “Godfather” caliber (which, I think, goes without saying) they were both pretty entertaining. The first one was a great action movie, with excellent pacing, interesting characters, a cool villain, cool fight scenes and some nice techno music. The second one was, for my money, a bit overrated. But I liked the way they explored Blade’s character through his romance with that one vampire chick, and I liked the Blood Pack guys that were originally trying to kill Blade, and then teamed up with him to fight some even freakier vampires. It had a good story and some neat fights, even if the end did devolve into some ludicrous WWE grudge match complete with elbowing and lots of jumping around. It wasn’t a perfect movie, but it was interesting enough and I liked it.

“Blade: Trinity” isn’t necessarily a bad movie…but it’s a pretty bland one. And the reason for that is that the film, like “Godfather 3” is pretty much unnecessary. There’s really no need for a third film about Blade. Well, there could have been another cool movie in the adventures of this stoic half-vampire, but “Blade: Trinity” isn’t it. I remember reading once that the third Blade film was going to take place in the future, where vampires ruled the world and all the remaining humans were kept in concentration camps. Now THAT is a cool idea that would have made for a cool movie. Instead, however, they decided to dig up Dracula for the third movie. This is rather anticlimactic. I mean, let us say that they kill Dracula, okay? Let’s just suppose that happens. So what? Who cares? We’ve seen Dracula die a hundred times in about a hundred different movies. It’s been done. Done to death, in fact. So why take Dracula out of mothballs and have him fight Blade? The answer: because it was probably cheaper than the whole vampire apocalypse scenario.

Okay, so Blade is fighting Dracula. I admit that it might have worked, theoretically. But it doesn’t. The guy playing Dracula in this movie is easily the blandest actor to take on the role. He doesn’t look like one of the undead, let alone the king of the undead, he just looks like a bored underwear model. The man has absolutely no menace. He’s so dull; I’m not even going to bother to look up his name. Why? It’s a pointless task. He’s just boring. Parker Posey tries to liven things up as a vampire bitch, but she’s woefully miscast here. She obviously showed up simply for the paycheck. And then there’s Triple H as some kind of vampire bouncer (well, that’s how he came off to me) who just doesn’t work at all. So here’s the main problem: the villains are really lame. And when the villains are lame, we don’t really delight in the hero’s victory over them. It’s just that simple. Blade could take these people, no problem. There’s no suspense here.

The heroes of the film fare slightly better, but not entirely. Wesley Snipes seems stiffer than usual in the lead role. He seems to be bored by the whole enterprise and, really, the film gives him absolutely nothing new to do. He kills more vampires, he speaks like Clint Eastwood with a case of strep throat, and he scowls a lot. Nothing we haven’t seen before. In the film he meets up with a band of young, punkish vampire hunters who call themselves the Night Stalkers (I think). Of these new vampire hunters, the real gem is Ryan Reynolds as the lively Hannibal King. He’s perhaps a little too quirky (watching Shatner movies in Esperanto and making perhaps a few too many wisecracks), but one can scarcely quibble when Reynolds brings this much life and zest to the role. Ryan Reynolds is the only reason this film is watchable. Whenever he’s onscreen, cracking jokes and slaying vampires and generally having a good time, that good time translates over to the audience. He’s great here, sort of like a vampire-killing Fletch. He’s easily the best thing in the movie, and one wishes the film had eschewed Blade and all the lame vampires and had just been about Hannibal King, wisecracking ass-kicker. Jessica Biel is fairly bland as the daughter of Kris Kristofferson’s Whistler character (who, disappointingly, makes an early exit from the proceedings). She shoots a crossbow and has some really cheesy vampire-killing appliances, but she doesn’t have much more life than the dude playing Dracula. Though she is hot, she’s fairly dull. Patton Oswalt and Natasha Lyonne are wasted as other members of the Night Stalker crew and, on the whole; the entire crew isn’t given much to do.

Not that there’s much for anyone to do in this movie. There is a lot of noise and bombast in this film but, in the end, it all amounts to nothing. Reynolds is great, but he’s overwhelmed by too many moments that feel bland, too many moments that have a “seen it” feel to them. Snipes and most of the others seem to be sleepwalking through the film and the filmmakers themselves almost seem to be making the movie out of nothing more than contractual obligation. There are moments of excitement…but not enough of them. The editing is chaotic, the direction is pedestrian and the script is lifeless. A lot of the movie’s characters might be undead but the movie itself feels, well, dead. If this was the best they could do, they needn’t have bothered.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 8th, 2004 at 11:36 am and is filed under Dale's Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.