Grade: D+
After two installments that came close to making up in style what they lacked in wit and verve, the Marvel Comics-based vampire-fighter saga comes crashing down to earth with this supposedly final episode. While the initial “Blade,” directed by Stephen Norrington, had some real visual punch and an eye-popping villain in Stephen Dorff, and the follow-up benefitted from the classy touch of Guillermo Del Toro even if its script didn’t match the direction, “Blade: Trinity” is a slapdash affair, about on a par with the mediocre action flicks, some also based on costumed Marvel characters, that Albert Pyun and his ilk churned out in the eighties and nineties. Writer David S. Goyer, who comes from the comics world and penned both previous entries, also takes on the directorial duties here; he may have had some special vision for the movie, but if so he didn’t possess the technique to realize it. This is one dull “Blade.”
As “Trinity” opens, the half-human, half-vampire Blade (Wesley Snipes, scowling majestically and striding about stiffly as he exhibits his pecs and his fighting technique) is still about his work, dispatching blood-suckers en masse. What he and his aging caretaker-mentor Whistler (the lugubrious Kris Kristofferson, who looks as bored as we are) don’t realize is that a bunch of Goth-inspired children of the night–most notably Danica Talos (Parker Posey, vamping it up to an extent that even in this case seems excessive) and Jarko Grimwood (pro wrestler Triple H, whose talents outside the ring appear to be limited)–have unearthed from a three thousand or so year slumber the original Dracula, also known as Drake (Dominic Purcell), the “pure” progenitor of the breed uncontaminated by the weakening of their powers that came with his descendants’ contact with humankind. So his powers are far greater than those of ordinary vampires: he can take on any shape he likes, enjoy the sunlight, fly about–and beat up anybody, it seems. With him as their leader, it appears, the vampires are poised to take over the world, especially since they apparently have a small army of Renfields in the human world–doctors and policemen who are, for some unexplained reason, willing servants of their plans. As for Blade, they contrive to get him arrested–a circumstance that threatens his work, especially since Whistler’s been killed in the process, until he’s rescued by a young group of vampire hunters called the Night Stalkers (Kolchak, take note), headed by Whistler’s daughter Abigail (Jessica Biel, eye candy but little more in her leather Elektra-like costume) and a recovered vampire acolyte named Hannibal King (Ryan Reynolds, who’s supposed to provide the humorous relief but delivers neither element). They and their cohorts pursue the vampire band with the intent of using a specially-devised virus that, it’s hoped, will be fatal to all vampires–including Drake–while leaving humans untouched. Naturally, there are lots of fights and reversals along the way to the inevitable one-on-one between Dracula and Blade.
What’s most surprising about all this is how rote and repetitive it seems. The Dracula figure is clearly an attempt to trump the villains in the earlier installments–both Dorff’s ambitious vampire prince in the first picture and the mutant Nomak (Luke Goss) of part two–but it fails to register because the conception is so drab and Purcell’s grimace-filled turn so blandly familiar from other flicks of this type. Perhaps if the material had been staged with the sort of moody elegance that Del Toro brought to the only slightly more interesting second installment, “Trinity” would be at least tolerable. But as it is, Goyer’s work is thoroughly pedestrian. The expository scenes are handled without panache–certainly the dreary attempts at comic banter that Reynolds is saddled with offer no relief–and when it comes to the big action moments, he and the stunt specialists stage them with so much cutting and whiplash camerawork that they’re simply exhausting. (And dark, too: Gabriel Beristain’s cinematography is positively murky.) Nothing is distinguished on the behind-the-scenes side, including the maddeningly pulsating score from Ramin Djawadi and The RZA.
Though “Blade: Trinity” presents itself as the concluding entry in the saga, it nonetheless takes pains to leave room for yet another installment. But the truth is that even for a vampire series, this one is getting very long in the tooth. Enough is enough.