Why do I put myself through this all the time? When a story and script is just so bad that not even an already established kick-ass character can salvage it. Yes, I am talking about the utter disaster that was Blade: Trinity. I’m really starting to hate this column; forcing me to relieve my worst cinema experiences. Who came up with this? These movies were once off watches. I’d sooner take Alan Rickman’s advice and cut my own heart out with a spoon. I’m just going to fall back to us writer’s default plan of “If in doubt blame the editors.” Yeah, yeah, I’m looking at you! (You did this to yourself – Ed.)
Blade: Trinity sees poor Wesley Snipes and co. having to wade their way through the most unappealing, lacklustre, badly composed drivel ever vomited up by a writer looking to cut corners by using Dracula as a villain; as though that’s never been done before in a vampire movie, ever. There’s some crap here about trying to take over the world and making everyone vampires and Blade becoming public enemy number one, but none of this is ever really made to be anything other than a weak excuse to have Blade run around beating the unholy snot out of things. On top of this someone thought it was a good idea to drag Jessica Biel and Ryan Reynold in to be marginalized plot devices with some of the worst lines I’ve ever heard uttered in a cinema before in my life. And also, I take personal offense to the very notion that they would think having Jessica Biel kick ass while wearing headphones a good idea. Are you…. f**king…. kidding me? The script reads like someone injected bleach directly into the language centre of the script writer’s brain and then beat them till they were finished.
I’m sure if you’ve seen the movie you must have asked yourself how it all went wrong. Realistically, a Blade movie, even one of mediocre story should still be a fun thrill ride. The original didn’t have the most complex premise and yet still turned into the classic we all know and love. The second had Ron Perlman for crying out loud. How could the third be this terrible? How could it be so terrible as to kill an entire franchise so stone dead that even the first two movies felt the Grim Reaper’s icy touch?
How can I talk about this film’s failings without talking about the utter train wreck that was the script? I’ve never felt so awkwardly bad for any other actors as I did for these. At moments in the movie you could genuinely see the realization flicker across their little unhappy faces as the weight of the utter crap they were saying truly sank in. I know people complain about Wesley Snipes on the set of the movie, but can we really blame him for being unprofessional? Under normal circumstances I’d say suck it up but daaaaaaamn the shite they were working with. Laying the blame solely at his feet is denying credit to all the others that sacrificed animals to raise this damned, unholy beast of a crapfest. The few chuckle heavy moments in the movie were down to Reynolds and a lot of those were ad-libed. The single, only minor redeeming thing in the entire movie and Ryan Reynolds is making it up on the fly to fill the horrifying voids. Let that just sink in there.
When you move passed the script you enter the realms of the most confused, half-assed story you can imagine. Somehow, they thought it was a good idea to take the film away from the original plan where we would see Blade fight to preserve the last shred of Humanity in a slowly vampirizing world, to one where we’re left with a daft grudge match between Blade and Dracula, who despite not being very fond of his own kind in general, seems moderately keen to involve himself in their general lunacy. Not enough vodka in the world to get that to make sense to me. Dominic Purcell, I’m so sorry they did this to you. You didn’t deserve this role. You didn’t deserve to be reduced to the functionality of a vampire shaped blow up doll that said words and who’s only purpose was to distract from the lack of anything resembling story. I am so, so sorry they did this to you.
You would think that considering it’s a Blade movie that despite all the other issues, we’d still have some decent fight scenes but sadly these never materialized either. Shaky cameras, heavy editing and absolutely wasted potential with actors who can genuinely handle themselves, and the only decent thing that could have come out of a Blade movie, literally missing everything else, was utterly lost. Just look at the work Jessica Biel and Ryan Reynold put into their own characters’ physical presence and stunts and look at what they were told to do with that.
If you want to know who I blame for this film’s cataclysmic self-destruction you only have to look as far as the director and writer David S. Groyer. I blame him. Oh, I blame him so much. How could you? How could you do this? I’m going to go lie down now and hopefully dream of a Blade that isn’t utter shite.
