Blade: Trinity is kind of a delirious mess of a movie, which is really one of its best features. It’s also a pop culture goldmine, and in my imagination, it could have spawned some great things.
By design, though, Blade: Trinity is a high octane supernatural action flick. Written, produced, and directed by
David S. Goyer, who also scripted The
Dark Knight, it brims
with stylized settings, physics-defying violence, and propulsive fight sequences.
Here is a brief plot synopsis: Blade is the ‘daywalker', a human/vampire hybrid
who kills a lot of regular vampires. Tired of being hunted, the vampire queen
Danica Talos (played by Parker Posey…and yes, you read that correctly) unearths
Dracula to convince him to kill Blade. But in this case, Dracula isn't Gary Oldman with crazy hair; he's an ancient, nigh indestructible beast who can take human form. Also, instead of Dracula, he's now called Drake. For his part, Blade
enlists the help of a younger, ‘hipper’ group of vampire hunters, and they all fight
it out until somebody wins. I’d tell you who, but I don’t want to spoil the
surprise.
Rotten Tomatoes scores the movie at
26%; only 43 of 163 critics liked it. Compared with a score of 55% for the first Blade movie and 59% for Blade II, Trinity is widely considered the worst of the Blade Trilogy. But I say, "Screw the critics." This movie is a lot of fun. Wesley Snipes is arguably better as Blade
than he is in any other role. The vampire hunters use all sorts of cool gadgets,
like UV lasers and decoy plastic infants that spew garlic. There’s also a scene where
Dracula goes into a vampire-themed novelty store, becomes angry when he sees (among other things) a box of Count Chocula, and kills the sales staff.
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| I will not turn your milk brown! |
So, yeah, its a pretty ridiculous movie, and there are a few things about it that just plain make no sense:
- If Dracula is stronger in his original form as a big, spiny demon-monster, why does he wait until the end of his showdown with Blade to change?
- This movie came out in 2004. So if Ryan Reynolds' character is such a hip vampire hunter, why do all his pop culture references sound like they're from 1996?
- When Parker Posey sees Dracula feeding on a pile of corpses, why is she so disturbed? She's a vampire, too. That's what they do.
- And why, seriously, why in the holy moly fuck is Parker Posey in this movie? What's more, why does she spend half of her screen time looking like an evil Oompa Loompa?
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| C'mon, Wonka. You gotta control your minions. |
Honestly, I love this movie. No, it is not the best of the trilogy. That would be Blade II, which was directed by Guillermo del Toro. But Trinity is loads of fun to watch. It also had tons of potential. Here comes the 'Franchise of My Mind' part, where I think about what this movie might have spawned in an alternate universe.
First off, this movie poised the pro wrestler, Triple H, to be the next Richard Kiel.The man looks good in metal teeth. Would it be untoward to try and convince somebody to put a Jaws-like character in one of the new James Bond movies?
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| I'm looking at you, Daniel Craig. |
Next: Did you know that Blade: Trinity was the third movie in four years to simultaneously feature Parker Posey and John Michael Higgins? The first two, of course, were two of Christopher Guest's delightful mockumentaries, Best in Show and A Mighty Wind.And this is what I think is the greatest wasted potential of this movie.
Just imagine more movies in the Blade series that feature actors from Christopher Guest's movies. Don't call it a crossover, because who wants to watch Fred Willard's vulgar cornball of a band promoter from A Mighty Wind feast on the blood of virgins? Actually, I kind of do, but he's the exception that proves the rule.
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| I love blood but that doesn't make me a hemo-sexual. |
Look at it this way, Jane Lynch will never take a break from being awesome, but why doesn't she try being a creature of the night for a spell? Or better yet, I have four words for you: Eugene Levy, Vampire Assassin.
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| Humanity's days are numbered. |
But here's the problem. The only vampires who survive Blade movies are generally the ones Blade doesn't know about. This means there are no recurring vampire characters. Even Parker Posey's Danica Talos meets a grisly end. There's also reality. Blade: Trinity's box office haul was only so-so, which gave the producers plenty of incentive to end the series at the magic number three. Add that to the fact that Wesley Snipes criticized David Goyer for putting too many extra characters in the film and then sued him for more salary, the film franchise was probably dead before it made it to DVD. I also think the fans of the original comic books might object to this change in direction.
Alas. Yet I hope this article has created an alternate timeline. One where a fanged Catherine O'Hara lures an unsuspecting Michael McKean into a dark alley in Blade 4...and maybe Jimi Hendrix is still alive, too. Yeah, that would be pretty cool.
