Blade Trinity: extended version – review

Directed By: David S Goyer

Release Date: 2004

Contains spoilers

If you have already read my reviews of Blade and Blade 2 you’ll see that, in my opinion, they did the unusual by making the sequel better than the original. Unfortunately they didn’t continue the trend in this case and the film is the weakest of the trilogy. Perhaps this has much to do with del Toro passing up this film as he had the green light for Hellboy and Goyer (who wrote all three films) taking over the directional reins.

I first saw this at the cinema and left bitterly disappointed. When the DVD release was available with an extended version my hope re-ignited – but the extra footage didn’t help. If anything it just confused the ending – a point we’ll get to later.

The film starts with a voice over by Hannibal King (Ryan Reynolds) regarding Blade (Wesley Snipes) and then we see helicopters land in the Syrian Desert. The occupants of the helicopters are wearing protective clothing, shielding them from the sun - vampires. If that wasn’t obvious enough one gives the finger to the sun. They enter ruins, lift one slab and reveal stairs (how many archaeologists wish it was that easy!) In the sub-basement of the ruins (for want of a better description) they detect a body. Cue armoured hand grabbing a vampire and devouring one of them and then a creature emerging. Here we have our main vampire players for the film. The creature is Drake (Dominic Purcell) and I’ll give more background on him later. The others are Danica Talos (Parker Posey), her brother Asher (Callum Keith Rennie) and Jarko Grimwood (wrestler, Triple H).

We see on TV an interview with forensic psychiatrist Dr Edgar Vance (John Michael Higgins) and chief of police Martin Vreede (Mark Berry). They are asked about vampires and dismiss the notion – Vance says that vampires are nothing more than repositories of our most taboo thoughts (I liked that). When asked about Blade they say he is a troubled individual.

Cut to Blade fighting vamps and a car chase. Cutting a long story short Blade stakes the last one and he does not dust. He is a familiar with fake fangs. The whole thing is a set up, with Danica filming the murder. Blade is to be public enemy number one. It all seemed a little too elaborate. We have already been told in the first film that they control the police, in this film (later) we discover that both Vance and Vreede are familiars. Such a move could have been made at any time without the need for such an elaborate scheme.

Cut to a train station and a group of vampire kids (one of whom is wearing a Lost Boys T-Shirt) are looking for a meal. They select a woman with a baby in a papoose. They go for her but it is a set-up. The baby is a doll which sprays garlic and the woman is actually Abigail Whistler (Jessica Biel), Whistler’s daughter from out of wedlock. We see one of the new weapons in the film, a UV arc – essentially a laser saw and a bit over the top, even for a comic book movie.

The FBI raid Blade’s hideout, subsequently killing Whistler (Kris Kristofferson) and capturing Blade. He is drugged and about to be delivered, via Vance, to the vampires when he is rescued by Abigail and Hannibal King. They take him to their hideout and explain that they are the Nightstalkers, a cell of vampire slayers.

What we have then are two final solutions. The vampires’ final solution is creating blood farms – I wonder how long it took them to come up with that (in fairness the prototype for them was a deleted scene from the first movie). The Nightstalkers’ final solution is a virus called Daystar, a virus that will kill all vampires. To be fully effective, however, they need Drake’s blood.

Our new vampire lore comes mainly in the form of Drake. He is the first vampire and has been known as both Dagon and Dracula (!) He is a daywalker (hence him being found by the vampires as they think he can help them become the same) and a shapeshifter. During the film he takes the form of Vance and Whistler. He is also a warrior obsessed with honour – so why shapeshift? Isn’t that a dishonourable way to approach your enemies?

In his true, demonic, form he has a mouth much like the reapers from the second film. We also get some vampire dogs (the vampires have been experimenting with cross-species infection) including a vampire Pomeranian (!), these also have reaper mouths.

The film falls flat in many areas, the first is in the direction. Like the others this is mainly an action movie but Goyer relies on fast cuts – annoying and telling at the same time. The pacing of the film seems off compared to the other two. This was only the second film that Goyer had directed and it really shows, perhaps even more because he tried to follow one of the world’s great directors (i.e. del Toro).

The next problem is a specific scene when Abigail remembers a talk by her father, giving his background and trying to persuade her not to be a vampire hunter. The footage is lifted straight from Blade, and Whistler giving his background to Karen Jensen, with just a little voiceover added at the end - that was just lazy.

The casting and acting is also problematic. Kris Kristofferson must be on screen for five minutes maximum. Wesley Snipes appears bored and disinterested, having only one brilliant line when he catches a baby thrown by Drake and says Koochie-Koo. It is difficult to take Parker Posey seriously given the trouble she seems to have speaking with fangs in. Callum Keith Rennie has a huge amount of on screen presence and, typically, his character is given bugger all to do.

Triple H is okay as vampire heavy Jarko. There is a fight with him and King that is essentially wrestling and, as King gets a submission hold on him and breaks his wrist, I remember thinking it would have been fun if he’d ‘tapped out’.

Purcell is also okay as Drake, though I never got the feeling of ultimate evil. There is a nice scene when he goes into a Dracula merchandise store and dislikes what he sees, including Dracula vibrators, Dracula cola and Count Chocula cereal. This leads to a nicely done bite sequence on the shop girl.

Finally we have Ryan Reynolds as King. Despite coming off as a bit of a Jason Lee rip-off, his is a great performance and character. The unfortunate thing is that they never really gave him an efficient foil for his humour. We get a little background on King, he has a House tattoo and was a vampire who was cured. It would have been nice to get some more background as he was, by far, the most interesting character.

Another problem I had with the film was blatant product placement. Half the time I felt like I was watching an i-pod advert.

The extended version really adds very little to the film and confuses the ending. The DVD actually has three epilogue endings. The theatrical release ending makes a lot more sense (given Drake’s final words) than that of the extended version. There is a deleted ending that has the Nightstalkers fighting werewolves in a casino – cueing up for a Nightstalker film or series, perhaps.

To me this is the weakest link in the Blade chain. It is below average, cynically pushing advertising and potential further films/series and even manages to drop an age rating. 3 out of 10 reflects that there is still action, if poorly directed, Reynolds performance and the occasional nice scene.

The imdb page is here.