BLADE: TRINITY: Sounds Like Rejects from a Saturday Morning Cartoon

Blade: Trinity (2004) – Directed by David S. Goyer – Starring Wesley Snipes, Kris Kristofferson, Jessica Biel, Ryan Reynolds, Parker Posey, Dominic Purcell, Triple H, Callum Keith Rennie, Natasha Lyonne, John Michael Higgins, Patton Oswalt, James Remar, and Eric Bogosian.

BLADE: TRINITY is not the fall from the mountaintop that Spider-Man 3 represents, but it is a definite step down in quality from the first two movies in the vampire-hunting franchise.

The main problem with TRINITY is that it moves BLADE firmly into superhero territory; watching this film is like watching a comic book company try to save an under-selling book by tossing in a bunch of guest stars and trying to make the book look more like everything else in the company line. It just doesn’t work; if anything, TRINITY feels like it should be the fourth movie in the series (not that there is a fourth movie in the series) and in the early stages of the film I feel like I’ve missed a story. The BLADE franchise, then, is like picking up a few old back issues of a now defunct comic, maybe from one of those awesome East Coast Comics ads that used to run in Marvel books all the time, and digging issues 18 through 25, but then being mostly confused by issue 64.

Things progress too quick here, and there’s an acute sense of David S. Goyer (who wrote all the BLADE movies and directs TRINITY) jumping too far ahead in his overall story. Before you’ve even settled into your seat, we’ve got some vampires digging up Dracula and Whistler being killed, and then Blade is hanging out with Patton Oswalt. It just moves too fast and too unconvincingly.

Danica Talos (Parker Posey) leads a group of vampires to look for Dracula in the-

I just can’t go on without saying how much I hate Parker Posey in this movie. She’s not an actress that does a whole lot for me even on her good days (mostly in the Christopher Guest films), but she’s intolerable here. Talos’ vibe is all “I’m better than you because I’m a bitch who doesn’t care,” and Posey does little to convince me she’s not on total cruise control in this movie. It’s not all Posey’s fault, of course, because she seems to deliver exactly what Goyer wants out of Talos, but whether the fault likes more with Goyer or Posey, I can’t stand the scenes with her in them.

The problems for Blade (Wesley Snipes) and Whistler (Kris Kristofferson) start when Blade kills a human familiar of the vampires. This comes to the attention of the FBI, who lead a raid on Blade and Whistler’s HQ which ends with the mechanic/father figure dying for good this time. The FBI captures and interrogates Blade, but the two chief interrogators interview Blade like they learned their cop techniques from watching reruns of bad cop movies.

It’s awful stuff, and we’re saved from seeing even more of it (or John Michael Higgins’ phony psych exam) by the arrival of Hannibal King (Ryan Reynolds) and Abigail Whistler (Jessica Biel). There’s a decent fight scene during their escape but it’s just that – decent and nothing more.

Another area where TRINITY fails is that this movie feels more like THE NIGHTSTALKERS AND BLADE rather than BLADE AND THE NIGHTSTALKERS. The movie asks Reynolds’ charisma to carry much of the film, and while Reynolds’ is fine in that role, the film has him go overboard a bit too much. King’s outward loudness is balanced by Whistler’s inner calm, and perhaps if the film were simply theirs instead of having to include Blade, it might have worked better. As it is, however, we’ve got Blade competing for screen time with King and Whistler; as a result, where the previous two films were able to blend a variety of genres into an effective movie, TRINITY’s varying parts never coalesce.

There’s other Nightstalkers, too, but they’re here just to die.

The Nightstalkers-featuring-Blade want to stop Dracula (Dominic Purcell) and blah blah blah …

I mean, there’s nothing here unique or surprising or barely engaging. Everything is either a step down in comparison to previous films or a step sideways, and all of it is confusing. There’s really not much more to say about TRINITY. It’s not the worst film ever made, but it’s a step back from the first two films. It’s a much more straightforward superhero action movie but it’s not as enjoyable. In making the movie function more like a traditional superhero story, Goyer has robbed Blade of what makes him unique.

BLADE II: The Dark Knight Returns

Blade II (2002) – Directed by Guillermo del Toro – Starring Wesley Snipes, Kris Kristofferson, Ron Perlman, Leonor Varela, Norman Reedus, Luke Goss, Thomas Kretschmann, Danny John-Jules, Donnie Yen, and Tony Curran.

BLADE II is one of the most successfully stylish films I’ve ever seen.

Even if the story sucked (and it doesn’t), I could watch BLADE II and enjoy it simply for how cool it looks, moves, and sounds. With Guillermo del Toro stepping into the director’s chair for Stephen Norrington, the BLADE franchise loses a bit of its grittiness and gains some flash in return. The main elements still remain, however: BLADE II is an R-rated superhero/horror film full of violence and blood, and Wesley Snips and Kris Kristofferson still provide the rock-solid narrative backbone.

One of the best decisions made concerning BLADE II was to tell a new story instead of simply redoing the first story; the stakes are amped up here, first by having Blade (Snipes) searching for his mentor/mechanic Whistler (Kristofferson) and leaving a trail of dead vampire bodies throughout Eastern Europe. When he finds the old man, Whistler is being held in a vat of blood, the vampires regenerating his body after they bit him and he offed himself in the first film. Blade brings Whistler to his temporary HQ, which he now shares with a new tech guy, Scud (Norman Reedus), and forces him on a one-night detox that does, admittedly, feel like a bit of a plot contrivance to get us from where we started to resetting the old Whistler. The film builds on this idea, though, teasing us with the possibility that Whistler’s vamp time has altered his allegiances.

The new HQ is attacked by some vampire assassins who are dressed in such a way that they now look like early costume designs for del Toro’s later Hellboy, Hellboy 2, and Pan’s Labyrinth films.

All of this happens within the first few sequences of the movie, and you can already tell that del Toro is going for a more stylish approach to the material. In the first BLADE, there was an attack on Blade and Whistler’s HQ by some vampires, and just like last film their current HQ is some kind of abandoned factory. The attack itself is rendered very differently this time around, however, as del Toro makes these vamps highly trained assassins, so there’s lots of jumping and flipping, lots of sword fighting and kicking, and lots of visual flair, both in terms of how the action is filmed and in the film’s color palette. Del Toro likes to paint his scenes with highly saturated colors to balance off all the darkness that’s unavoidable in a movie with vampires.

The two attacking vamps (dressed in head-to-toe black leather and goggles) reveal themselves to be Nyssa (Leonor Varela) and Asad (Danny John-Jules), and there’s a nice twist in that they’re coming to Blade to ask for his help. They bring him to meet one of the Big Bad Vamps, Eli Damaskinos (Thomas Kretschmann), who tells Blade there’s a new breed of mutated vamp out there who are feasting on vampires. Blade, of course, doesn’t see an issue with this, but then Damaskinos makes the point that when the Reapers are done feasting and turning regular vampires, where else are they gonna go except to eat humans?

It’s a rather simple but highly effective premise as Blade and his enemies are forced to work together. Nyssa and Asad have been training and leading the Blood Pack, a group of vampire assassins that are being trained to kill Blade. Nobody is happy about this, but the vampire Reinhardt (Ron Perlman) takes the lead on the anti-Blade rhetoric, and it’s a wise move because Reinhardt is, well, because Reinhardt is Ron Perlman. Perlman and Snipes have great chemistry together, in that Perlman is taller, grunts louder, and looks perfectly willing to stand toe-to-toe with Blade. Reinhardt functions as the Evil Whistler, in many regards, as they’re both the old curmudgeon/mentor figure of their respective units. One of the best aspects of BLADE II is simply listening to Whistler spout profanities around at Blade, Scud, Reinhardt, and anyone else who gets in his way.

BLADE II expertly uses action sequences to advance the narrative; instead of having a bunch of set pieces in between all the killing to build the plot, BLADE II is just as likely to introduce story elements inside the action sequences as it is during the downtime, such as questioning Whistler’s allegiances or introducing a subplot concerning Nomak (Luke Goss), the first Reaper, not killing Nyssa during a big Blood Pack vs. Reapers fight. It’s a simple but highly effective storytelling technique, as it makes the action exist for reasons beyond the cinematic coolness of watching vampires and Reapers and half-vampires and humans kill each other.

By having two enemy factions working together, the constant question is not if there’s going to be a betrayal of the uneasy alliance, but when the two sides are going to betray the other. Eventually it’s Blade who gets taken out by the Blood Pack, and then he, Whistler, and Scud are brought to Damaskinos’ lair, where Scud reveals he’s one of Damaskinos’ familiars. Blade knew this, of course, and there’s a good bit of comedy as he detonates a small bomb that had been connected to Reinhardt’s skull. Scud is all, “Ha, ha, B, it’s a fake!” and then outs himself as a spy, and Blade tells him, “No, it’s not,” and then triggers the bomb, causing Scud to explode.

It’s a pretty funny moment in a movie without a lot of funny in it. Most of the humor comes from the characters trash talking each other, and it provides the right amount of levity to all of the serious talk focusing on the Reaper problem.

The ending sees Damaskinos revealed as the creator of the Reaper virus and then everyone kills each other, with only our heroes making it out alive. It’s fitting that the film sets up Damaskinos as the father of Nyssa and “father” of Nomak, as their dysfunctional unit eventually sees all of them dead, while the dysfunctional family of Blade and Whistler survives.

BLADE II is another excellent edition to the Marvel catalog, and one that only gets better with repeated viewings.

BLADE: Catch You F*ckers at a Bad Time?

Blade (1998) – Directed by Stephen Norrington – Starring Wesley Snipes, Stephen Dorff, Kris Kristofferson, N’Bushe Wright, Donal Logue, Udo Kier, Sanaa Lathan, and Traci Lords.

Why doesn’t BLADE get the respect I think it deserves?

Is it because it stars an incredibly minor character from the Marvel Universe? Because it stars an actor who’s fallen off the public’s radar? Because it stars a black dude? Because it’s a combo superhero-horror movie? Because no one likes vampir-

Okay, it’s probably not that last one.

I’m not sure why BLADE is an afterthought, but even if we decide that it’s not a film worth remembering for the content, we need to carve out a place for its cultural importance. It’s easy to forget now with all these successful Marvel movies how important BLADE was at the time, but back in 1998 it sometimes felt like Marvel was never going to get a good movie made that connected with the public. Of course, by the late ’90s, the only successful cinematic superhero franchise running involved Batman, and Bats was busy running himself into the ground.

And then along came BLADE.

When I first saw BLADE, I didn’t even think of it as a superhero film because it wasn’t a character I had grown up reading, or even had any real connection with, at all. What I connected with, though, was the action and horror and style. BLADE is an excellent movie, made for grown-ups more than the all-ages crowd, and even though Wesley Snipes occasionally tries too hard to push his cool onto the screen, there’s little to complain about in this still-solid film.

It doesn’t mean everything, but it does mean something that there’s still no superhero film out there that look and sounds and moves like BLADE does. Even re-watching it now, it leaves me baffled that Marvel is so unwilling to get either a Black Panther movie into production, or any female character into a solo film.

I mean – someone made a movie starring Blade.

And it’s awesome.

And it was a hit.

It would be one thing if Marvel simply didn’t have a script they were happy with, but the comments coming from the Marvel offices about how Black Panther presents a unique challenge or that there isn’t any female character or female actress who can carry a solo movie is just maddeningly dumb. Let me repeat – they made a Blade movie. And it’s awesome. And it was a hit.

BLADE starts out with Traci Lords bringing that tall blonde cop from The Shield to a nightclub run by Deacon Frost (Stephen Dorff), where they dance to music I don’t listen to as the sprinklers in the ceiling start raining blood down on them. Nothing about this scene makes me raise my incredibly low opinion of vampires so I was primed and ready for Blade (Wesley Snipes) to show up and start offing the smug bastards. And that’s what he does. The action scenes are impressive without being enough to make the film work on their own. Snipes is the real deal as a martial artist vampire hunter, though. He may pose a bit too much, but there’s no doubting his ability to kick ass with hands, feet, and weapons.

It’s not the action that makes me love BLADE, though, but the relationship between Blade and Whistler (Kris Kristofferson). As Blade says at one point, it’s a perfect relationship because, “He makes weapon and I use them.” Whistler is the guy behind the scenes, the one who patches up not only their weapons, but Blade, too. He administers the serum that allows Blade to hold his bloodlust at bay. There’s surprisingly great chemistry between Snipes and Kristofferson, as his old man crankiness provides the perfect balance to Snipes’ young man posturing.

At Frost’s club, Blade has a violent throwdown with Quinn (Donal Logue), and after setting him on fire but before he can deliver the killing blow, the cops show up and take Quinn’s blackened, crispy body to the morgue, where he wakes up, bites one doctor bad and another not-so-bad. This other doctor is Dr. Karen Jenson (N’Bushe Wright), and even though she was bitten, Blade takes her home to Whistler instead of killing her.

“Bringing home strays now?” Whistler grumbles, telling Blade what Blade knows, that he should have offered her. Whistler shoots her up with garlic and she gets mostly better, and then they release her back into the wild.

As bait.

One of Frost’s familiars (humans who want to be turned into a vamp so bad they become pets) shows up at Jenson’s apartment to kill her and then Blade appears to rough him up. Jenson is furious at being used to lure an attacker into the open, but Blade dismisses her concerns with a curt, “Get over it.” Using Karen as bait and being emotionally blunt with her gives BLADE a rough edge that serves as the link between Kristofferson and Snipes.

BLADE is an action movie and a horror movie and a superhero movie, but when you combine all of it together and distill it down into the Blade/Whistler relationship, BLADE is a business movie. When Whistler shows up to save Blade an Jenson and growls at the vamps, “Catch you f*ckers at a bad time?” you can hear both the distaste for vamps, the joy in killing them, and the tiredness that he feels from still having to do this. Whistler and Blade have each gotten into this life because vampires killed their family, but they’ve been at this long enough that they’re feeling the grind. Their emotions are still there but they need to be pulled out of them. When Jenson suggests to Blade that he can get past his revenge and be like everyone else, Blade angrily tells her, “I have spent my entire life searching for that thing that killed my mother, and made me what I am. And every time I take one of those monsters out, I get a little piece of that life back. So don’t you talk to me about forgetting.”

In one of the nice twists, it turns out that Blade’s mother, Vanessa (Sanaa Lathan), is still alive and a member of Frost’s vampire … what do you call a group of vampires, anyway? Whatever it is, she’s hanging with Frost because Frost is the guy who turned her into a vampire on the night Blade was born. There’s an incredibly uncomfortable tension between Blade and mommy; he’s obviously thrilled that she’s alive but horrified at what she’s become and who she’s with. Vanessa, for her part, is all sorts of hot and actively uses that hotness to get a bit seductive with her son.

It’s creepy, but it does help to effectively demonstrate what can happen to someone when they lose their humanity and become a vampire. It’s one thing to look at Frost and see that he wants to gain power in order to stick it to the purebloods (Frost was once human and so the vamps that were born vamps look down at him), but another to see Blade’s mom so far removed from her humanity that she’s using her sex appeal to seduce her son over to their cause.

Frost wants to become a vampire god or some nonsense; all I know is that it leads to a cool final battle that sees lots of blood and lots of killing that prove incredibly satisfying. BLADE is a really good movie that could have suffered from being parts horror, action, and superhero, but Snipes, Kristofferson, and Wright make it all work. It’s been nearly fifteen years since BLADE hit the theaters and it still stands as movie that’s important both culturally and aesthetically.