Twitch

BLADE TRINITY
New Line Cinema
Dir David Goyer
113 min. Rated R for strong pervasive violence and language, and some sexual content.

Shaft with vampires? It's an angle I should probably defend a little bit for the purists especially considering most of the day of release reviews of this film in the Blade series, but there's no doubt in my mind that with Blade: Trinity's lone black streetwise protagonist, exploitation styled violence and action, and ultra cheesy vampire antics qualifies as a neo blaxploitation flick. Sure the budget's way too big and the overall casting way too white but there's a serious sass to the way this movie walks boldly through it's plot holes to deliver kitschy entertainment.

Pre-release fan reaction to this film has been puzzling to me. What do fans of this series want? Neither of the other two films was particularly good but they were a lot of fun. And every Blade film has had it's own special flavor. The first one focused on action, providing one of the best vampire sequences ever put on film with it's dance club blood bath opening. The second, directed with great energy by Guillermo del Toro, was heavy on comic book stylings and featured easily best vampire monsters of any film in recent memory.

But the franchise has always been held back by it's stories. The first film offered up a vampire religion that alienated human viewers. Who gives a rip about the vampire God if you're not a vampire? The second film wasted it's best characters, the vampire swat team, by dressing them in body armor and basically giving them nothing to do but shoot guns. Blade Trinity is no different offering a story of monumental silliness.

Blade finds himself hunted by both humans and vampires when the Vampire Nation awakens an ancient progenitor of their race and frames the Daywalker for the murder of a human as part of their plan to enact the vampiric final solution. Forced to throw his lot in with a ragtag group of vampire hunters who refer to themselves as the Nightstalkers, Blade faces his greatest challenge and the possibility that what the group hopes will destroy the vampire race will also destroy him.

All three films have been written by David Goyer. Goyer who has thus far established himself during his career as the screenwriter of Demonic Toys ( a first class low budget horror comedy) and the breathtaking Dark City has also penned the screenplay to the Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins. I don't think it's too much to say that many of these Blade fans were hoping for the same brooding dark serious epic feel. Blade: Trinity offers a lean mean action movie filled with all the humor and horror of the previous two but also serves up a notice- Blade is never gonna get that post apocalyptic vampire billion dollar budget greenlight. These are smaller movies and Goyer has done a lot with a little.

In one instance a battered SUV pulls up to a building surrounded entirely by police and rather casually tells our heroes to get in so they can all blithely drive away. I laughed myself silly. At another point refuses Blade information saying “They'll kill me if I tell you.” After a perfectly timed pause Blade grabs him and says “?#@$!%@$ I'll kill you!” It's a funny moment but it would be equally funny on a Good Times episode. In other words Goyer is on the cheap but he makes good.

His main weakness is the way he photographs his action. The fights are way too choppy and fail to establish the kind of rhythm that makes this kind of action fun to watch. But Goyer puts together a solid chase at the beggining and offers some physically impossible weaponry that's every bit as kitschy as it is illogical.

Performance standouts include Ryan Reynolds who is funny, if foul mouthed, every time he cracks wise. Biehl absolutely owns the screen during her fight scenes and Parker Posey was b-o-r-n to play her role in this film. She finds the desperately silly center of this cinematic candy bar and it's a wonder her fangs don't rot from chewing the scenery.

Maybe I'm getting old, or maybe the fans are getting spoiled. I suggest we meet in the middle. Sometimes going to the movies is plainly and simply about having a fun ride. Blade Trinity couldn't be much sillier but as the third in a good but not great series fans should be glad for every little moment of entertainment they get.

Dave Canfield