Blade Trinity: Drac is Back...

Hey kids back again with another comic book movie and I can tell how much you will be thrilled and overwhelmed with joy as I crack open the shell of this flick.  So grab your silver nitrate and garlic and practice your most menacing glare.  This is Blade Trinity.

Spoilers are born ready, mother*&ker!

Yes I am touching base with creation of writer/director/producer David Goyer (Batman Begins, Blade, Blade II, The Dark Knight, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance and The Dark Knight Rises) who felt while by Stephen Norrington (Alien 3, Blade and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) and Guillermo del Toro (Kronos, Devil’s Backbone, Blade II, Hellboy, Pan’s Labyrinth and Hellboy 2: The Golden Army) did what he described as a fair job with his scripts, Goyer felt that something was missing from each of the predecessors and took it upon himself to finish the trilogy.   I am not saying the outcome is pure Ed Wood but…well here are some highlights.

Keeping with the comic book anti-hero theme based on Marv Wolfman’s character, Blade is up to his usual shenanigans i.e. lack of stealth.   Guy would not know subtle if it crept up on him and bit him in the ass.  Our story opens in the Syrian Desert allegedly just before Iraq lies the Tomb of Dracula (Boy that would make a great title for a comic) and about 5 low level vamps unearth him and convince him to do away Blade (Wesley Snipes of Passenger 57, Demolition Man, Blade, Blade II, and The Art of War) who half way around the world is torching a warehouse, laying to waste the undead and sneering all the way he does it.  Man I do dig the coat though.  This of course leads to a high speed chase in what looks like the FDR tunnel but in actuality are the tunnels of Montreal.  Yes Canada, imitating the U.S. since 1920 Prohibition.  From bikes to the ’68 Charger our beloved daywalker streaks the road with ash ridden corpses and one accidental human death as he realizes he was framed for manslaughter.   Whoops, his goof.  Sending the F.B.I. to his doorstep Blade and Whistler are attacked and Whistler (Kris Kristofferson of Convoy, A Star is Born, Knights, Blade and Blade II)is caught in his own self destruct blast leaving Blade captured by the feds.   Left to the vampires pulling the strings behind the humans, Blade looks finished but is in fact saved by a cell of vampire hunters, Hannibal King (Ryan Reynolds of Van Wilder, Foolproof, Smokin’ Aces and X-Men Origins: Wolverine) and Abigail Whistler (Jessica Biel of Seventh Heaven, Summer Catch, Celluar, Stealth, and The A-Team). 

 Dracula a.k.a. Drake (Dominic Purcell of Mission: Impossible II, Equilibrium and Prison Break) decides his children of the night got soft, lazy and foolish and decides to embrace the challenge that is the daywalker.  Goyer establishes Dracula as the Adam of Vampires the very source but goes back to the Babylonian timelines linking him to Lovercraft elder gods such as Dagon.   An interesting spin but nevertheless the hardcore Marvel fans have issues with this one more so than the first two and here are some of those reasons:  Hannibal King in the comics was an undead P.I.  Think Mick St. John from Moonlight.  Yes, a vampire trying to hold onto humanity by still beating the pavement playing shamus without relying on vampire traits too much.   Tomb of Dracula issues also state Dracula was Vlad Tempus made vampire and not the progenitor but because he held the title “Lord of the Vampires” from his predecessor he can shape shift, come back from ash and even tango with ease.   While I felt Reynold’s one liners were getting a bit tiresome and Snipes really needed to smile every now and then it wasn’t a bad flick.  Just think it could have used a bit more meshing from the previous source material.