A Scientist at the Movies Reviews by Greg Paris

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Title: Blade Trinity

Date Viewed: 1/9/05

Details:

Wesley Snipes

Kris Kristofferson

Dominic Purcell

Jessica Biel

Ryan Reynolds

Parker Posey

Director: David S. Goyer

Score: 0

The Review: Parker Posey is a Party Girl no longer.

Third, and hopefully final, installment in the Marvel-comic derived Blade series (see Blade and Blade II), and both the weakest link and the least satisfying so far. Daywalker Blade (Snipes), heavily tattooed vampire hunter and promotional material for hybrid vigor, gets a new set of sidekicks (Biel and Reynolds), while finally losing his old one (Kristofferson). But they are faced with cultural ennui ("vampires don't really exist" -- meme warfare, if ever such existed), human "familiars" that take up the wrong side, and with uncovering and turning the vampire's Final Solution for the human race. You'd think that any ecosystem with both predator and obligate monoculture prey would rapidly crash if the prey were totally eliminated, but I guess the vampires (or the screenwriters) never took Ecology 101.

It turns out that all contemporary vampires are but washed-out genetic shadows of the original founding mutant, and after a search, this individual (Purcell) has been found still to exist, and is released. (Be very uncomfortable!) But why was he hiding in a Babylonian temple? Or was he imprisoned somehow? Plot nuances unexplored. Irrespective, his superior genetic compounding allows him to violate many (if not all) of the canonical mythological constraints on vampires (sunlight, silver, etc.), and the screenwriters to extend the mythos with shape-shifting (etc). So much for convenient innate vulnerabilities to even out contesting opponents. But it makes for a lot of fight scenes.

One of the more intriguing features of the earlier Blade entries was the ingenuity put into the creation & design of novel anti-vampire weaponry and ordinance. While not totally missing this time around, it was less emphasized and consequently much less interesting.

(11-Jan-05)

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