Blade: Trinity is bloody good fun

There are a lot of people for whom the latest addition to the Blade series has nothing to offer. Actually, it’s probably most people. Blade: Trinity, the third and allegedly final chapter in the big screen adaptation of the Marvel comic about a ruthless, karate-kicking vampire-hunter, is as low-brow as can be. It’s a perfect example of style over substance; plot is passed over for slickly produced action sequences. Looking and sounding a lot like a music video, Blade: Trinity should pretty much only appeal to its core audience. Cool. I loved it, and it’s my pleasure to inform the other fans of the series that the third installment is no letdown from its predecessors.

I’m sure anybody who’s thinking of watching Blade: Trinity already knows exactly what it’s all about, but there might be a few uninitiated out there who have yet discovered its greatness. Because of the fact that they’re about vampires, Blade movies are often incorrectly billed as horror. There’s absolutely nothing scary about them. Blade: Trinity is an action movie that just so happens to have vampires in it.

Car chases. Big explosions. Kung-fu fighting. Snappy one-liners. Gorgeous women wielding weapons. Techno music. That’s Blade: Trinity in a nutshell. Doesn’t sound like much, I know, but the production qualities are grade “A”, from top to bottom. From fight choreography, to editing, to special effects, to original score, yadda yadda, everything about Blade: Trinity is done right. Should you not like it, then I guess this type of movie just ain’t your cup of tea.

That’s not to say, however, that there won’t be some lively debate, amongst fans, about how Trinity fits in with the first two movies. Writer/director David Goyer (he also wrote Blade 1 & 2) decided to take the franchise in a different direction. Blade: Trinity is still a dark movie, but it’s significantly more light-hearted than either of the first two.

Wesley Snipe’s title character spends a little less time on screen than we’re used to, to make way for a pair of pasty sidekicks, played by Jessica Biel (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, TV series 7th Heaven) and Ryan Reynolds (National Lampoon’s Van Wilder, TV series Three Guys, a Girl, and a Pizza Place). One can only wonder why the duo has such a prominent role. Is there going to be a spin-off? Do the producers think they can attract a wider audience with younger, whiter stars? Hmm…

At the open of Blade: Trinity, a real bee-otch of a vampire, played terrifically hammed-up by Parker Posie (Best in Show, Laws of Attraction) resurrects Dracula from his tomb in southern Iraq (hey, maybe that’s what Bush was looking for). Immediately afterwards, she frames Blade for murdering a human. Stuck in jail, Blade needs help from his new sidekicks to escape from prison and hunt down his new nemesis.

Blade’s new sidekicks are a nice addition. As Abigail Whistler, Jessica Biel is believably butt-kicking. Reynolds’ character, Hannibal King, moves between being superhero one minute, to comic relief the next, and his scenes are very funny.

I suppose my only real criticism of Blade: Trinity (and this is nitpicking) is that all the characters are too cool for school. Blade, with a hairdo straight from 1990, needs an update. Hannibal is supposed to be tough, but he wears a ridiculous amount of eyeliner. Dudes aren’t supposed to wear eyeliner. Dracula, for some reason, looks like a villain from The Mighty Morphine Power Rangers half the time, and the rest of the time looks like he’s been made-over by Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Dracula is totally metrosexual. And what’s with the product placement? Abigail Whistler is so cool that she listens to MP3s on her iPod, while killing vampires. I now officially hate Apple Computers.

Supposedly, this is the end of the Blade series. I doubt it. Blade 2 made more than the original, and I expect Blade: Trinity to top its predecessors, in the box office. In his directorial debut, David Goyer has done well, and we should expect more of him to come (at the moment, he’s writing Batman Begins). If this does, in fact, turn out to be the final Blade, at least it went out with a bang.

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Comments? E-mail Weindl at joewatchesmovies@yahoo.com.