BLADE TRINITY (2004)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, sociological*

I haven't seen either the one film David S. Goyer directed before he wrote and directed TRINITY or the two he did afterward. But despite Goyer's unquestionably limited directorial resume, I think he did a respectable job with the film, as good as Norrington's first installment with the Blade character and much better than Del Toro's "Cthulhu-vampire" outing.

Of course, many people didn't like the fact that main hero Blade (Wesley Snipes) shared the screen with a band of human vampire-hunters, loosely based on a group of Marvel characters called "the Nightstalkers." Snipes himself reportedly had major problems sharing the screen, and his sentiments made for a difficult shoot-- which makes it all the more impressive that TRINITY turned out as well as it did. It's quite possible that the movie's producers hoped that this film would spawn a Nightstalkers franchise, which didn't happen because TRINITY didn't do nearly as well as the second installment. What the movie's detractors fail to apprehend is that (1) Movie-Blade is a pretty dull, affect-less figure if he doesn't have more emotive characters off which to play, and (2) the script dealt with an epic threat that Blade alone could not have coped with.

The evil vampires, mostly the traditional type this time out, have a two-pronged scheme in mind. They've managed to find and revive the first vampire in history, who's as old as Sumeria and now goes by the name Drake (Dominic Purcell), though he's the inspiration for the mythic figure of Dracula. But to get Blade out of the way, the vamps use their network of human familiars-- who never seemed to be very important in the first two flicks-- to frame Blade for murder. The intervention of human law enforcement brings about the death of Blade's mentor Whistler (Kris Kristofferson) and Blade's capture. Number Two Vamp Danica (Parkey Posey) lays plans to obtain Blade from the human police, but the Nightstalkers rescue him first.

I will admit that most of the Nightstalkers are pretty forgettable, and the only ones who survive to the end anyway are Whistler's daughter Abigail (Jessica Biel) and Hannibal King (Ryan Reynolds, playing the only other movie-character derived from a Marvel original). Blade gives his fellow heroes lots of attitude, calling them "amateurs." Yet he still accepts (with zero gratitude) their help in seeking to thwart Drake's master plan: to eliminate most of humanity and use the remainder as perpetual "blood banks." Not only do the Nightstalkers supply some vital weapons, their scientist comes up with a bioweapon potentially capable of wiping out all bloodsuckers, though Blade himself, being half-vamp, might be a casualty.

While TRINITY is no adventure-classic, it displays the best story-boarded action sequences. Admittedly, while Biel's heroine brings a lot of stalwart intensity to the table, Goyer's version of Hannibal King cracks a few too many lame jokes. Purcell's burly Drake makes a welcome change from the majority of cinematic Draculas, though I could have lived without the part of the climax where Drake transforms into some sort of Sumerian demon.

And so ended the original BLADE trilogy (which would have made more sense than "trinity.") Though there was later talk of Snipes reprising his take on Movie-Blade, I for one felt it something of a dead end. None of the installments are great adventure films, but at least two of the three are solid formula-flicks, and unlike the current crop of comics-adaptations, they all happily avoided the pretentiousness of politicization.