By Stephen Pytak 

     Not the sharpest Blade in the drawer, 
pun intended.
     It's got its moments, but unfortunately
most of them belong to Ryan Reynolds.
     The best is when he pulls out an old
"Tomb of Dracula" Marvel comic, holds
the cover up to Snipes and says "this is 
what we're dealing with."
     Reynolds provides a lot of comic relief. 
At times, his quips are the only thing 
keeping us in tune.
     While "Blade: Trinity" has a few
O.K. action sequences, and Snipes still
kicks more ass than Samuel L. Jackson
did in "Shaft (2000)," this flick doesn't
do the "Blade" series justice.
     The series never really had a story arc,
aside from the basic concept.
     Blade was born a vampire, but he has
the uncanny ability to walk in daylight. 
     He was trained to kill vampires by 
a rugged vigilante, "Whistler (Kris
Kristofferson)." 
     There's not much in the way of  
character development with these guys.
They kill vampires. And that's basically
it. Sometimes the vampires get bigger and
badder. Sometimes they have to work with 
vampires to kill other vampires. And 
sometimes Whistler dies, or appears 
to die. He came back in "Blade II," then 
died again in "Trinity."
     "Blade (1998)" was the best. It spliced 
together elements of  action and horror
seemlessly. It was one of the
toughest blaxploitation films of the modern
era. It showered the screen with blood and
vampire ash in some unforgettable 
sequences.
     "Blade II (2002) " was also very good, 
not because of the story necessarily,
but because of the atmosphere and the
new breed of ghouls who've stepped up
to take on our hero. 
     "Blade:Trinity" is more of the same,
but it kind of recycles some of the ideas
of the previous films instead of taking
us in a new direction.
     The new bad guy here is supposed to
be the first vampire to walk the earth, 
"Drake (Dominic Purcell)."  On the surface
he looks like a member of Right Said Fred.
But when he gets pissed, he morphs into
a demon which looks like something 
straight out of a Troma film. 
     He's got a lot of horns and the 
flower-jaw the bad guys had in the last 
film. By the way, they got a few vampire
dogs in this flick that can do that too. 
     It's kind of sad how something that
was unique in one film can be reused
and reused to the point where it's no 
longer effective. I swore it was in "Van 
Helsing (2004)" too. 
     There's less gore this time out, but
more humor. And most of that comes from
a new batch of vampire hunters we're
introduced to called "The Nightstalkers."
     Reynolds and Biel do O.K. with what
they've got to work with. Reynolds gets
a lot of opportunities for one-liners. Biel
gets to kick ass and do a shower scene.
     There's no real chemistry between the
two, and neither have much chemistry
with Blade.
     There was talk of a spin-off series
with these two. The idea's not pulling me.
     According to IMDB, Goyer wanted to
take the film into the future, into a world
where vampires dominated the human 
race. The idea was rejected.
     Too bad.