Blade: Trinity (2004)

Whether it be intentionally or incidentally writer/director David S. Goyer succeeds in amalgamating the visual style of the two previous Blade films by making Blade: Trinity a sleek but raw actioner.

The problem is Blade is not an action franchise. It's a vampire franchise. Both Guillermo del Toro and Stephen Norrington understood this. Vampires can be sexy, scary, enticing, and downright brutal, all at the same time. But the vampires in Blade: Trinity are sissies. They're pissy, corny, spent, and essentially useless. They're not sexy, scary, or smart. They're just boring. And thus, there is no sense of horror, or danger, or urgency, or mystery. You never wonder if Blade will come out on top. You know he will and you can pretty much guess how before it happens.

Snipes' kung-fu-movieesque silent hero routine has grown tired. His character in this film lacks any real depth or complexity. Snipes is utterly boring unless he's kicking the crap out of someone, or at least threatening to.

Instead of developing the characters he already has Goyer keeps introducing new ones. Much like in the previous film, Blade soon finds himself surrounded by a new group of allies to whom his disdains. But instead of vampires, this time around it's a bunch of wise cracking teenagers. Each one more clichéd and uninteresting than the next.

And what should have been the highlight of the film, Goyer also manages to ruin. Through some broad stroke of banality Goyer even succeeds in making Dracula, the most favored and well known vampire in the history of literature and cinema, completely dull.

Goyer implements too many different and contradictory ideas into a single film. And the result is a film that's visually impressive but narratively clunky.

Many of Goyer's ideas, while contrived, aren't that bad. I mean. A group of wise cracking teenage vampire hunters isn't a bad idea. It might work as it's own film but it simply doesn't work in the context of the Blade universe.

Despite enthusiastic performances by much of the cast and Wesley Snipes' strong presence Blade: Trinity fails due to underdeveloped characters and an unfocused plot.

Lackluster writing and directing aside, this film still looks really, really good. Apparently the only people who really brought their A-game are cinematographer Gabriel Beristain, the entire art department, and visual effects team. Kudos to them all.