“… all came together beautifully in a kind of ‘symphony of suck’.”

Last night I watched Blade: Trinity and it was… a mistake. It was a huge mistake and I regretted it almost immediately. Well, that’s not exactly true; I kind of allowed the movie to do its worst in hopes that things would get better. It was kind of like living with an abuser: in the back of my mind I knew things would only stay the same or get worse, but in my heart I hoped that it would all change. It didn’t change, and Blade: Trinity ended up abusing both my mind and my heart. Blade: Trinity is a movie wherein Blade has to fight Dracula. Sounds pretty cool, right? Well, it’s not. Not at all. Blade is also joined by a group of losers known as the Nightstalkers, who are kind of like vigilantes but also really bland characters.

So let’s get into tearing this movie apar- I mean, ‘reviewing’ Blade: Trinity. Blade: Trinity is such a fucking bad movie because it is so boring. How you can take the idea of a half human/half vampire hunting down and killing Dracula in the modern age with a bunch of assholes who have cool gadgets and make it boring? It’s not an easy task, but Blade: Trinity did just that. The worst part is, I don’t even know why exactly it was boring. There isn’t one thing I can point to and go “there! That’s the culprit! That’s what this movie sucked so hard”, it just all came together beautifully in a kind of ‘symphony of suck’. So what made this movie boring? Let’s start with the story. Blade: Trinity goes back to its roots by introducing a ridiculous story and trying to pass it off as serious. I admit that there are attempts at humour (I’ll get to that later), but for the most part Blade: Trinity doesn’t know how fucking ridiculous it is; and that’s a problem. There are moments in Blade: Trinity where you could tell that the writer was trying to be ‘tongue-in-cheek’, but any and all attempts missed by a fucking mile. So essentially what you have are all of the “funny” moments making you roll your eyes, and all of the “emotional” moments making you double-over in laughter. And don’t get me wrong, this isn’t good-natured laughter; this is revenge laughter. You become mad at Blade: Trinity for putting you through all of this bullshit, so in various fits of schadenfreude you try to take back what little dignity the film has stolen from you. And what makes all of this worse is the fact that every single performance in this film is complete dogshit. Every actor is playing their role so fucking straight, even though the plot involves them literally hunting Dracula. This leads to even more eye-rolling and blatant anger at some points. Nothing in this movie is redeemable. The best part of Blade: Trinity, hands-down, is Ryan Reynolds playing Ryan Reynolds. Whoever wrote the jokes for Reynolds actually understood what humour was, and most (if not all of them) were actually really funny. The problem is, once again, the filmmakers decided to ruin this aspect by making every joke go over like a led balloon. That’s right, the one character who is actually trying to have fun with this ridiculous film gets stonewalled at literally every turn, and ironically this also stonewalls the enjoyment of the audience.

“But you said that the Blade movies aren’t to be watched for the performances. You said that the best parts are always the fights and the designs”. Why yes, loyal reader, I did say those things; but Blade: Trinity ruins even the best parts of this franchise. First of all, let’s tackle the fights. Blade: Trinity has fights in it, sure, but for some reason they weren’t interesting in the slightest. The fights that come closest to being cool are toward the end of the film, but everything before that just doesn’t live up to the expectations. Maybe it’s because the rest of the movie is so bad that I expect a kick-ass fight, and when I only get an alright fight my expectations perceive it as a shitty one. Either way I wasn’t feeling the fight scenes in Blade: Trinity. And besides, a vast majority of the fight scenes in Blade: Trinity revolve around Blade and co. killing police officers. They aren’t even vampires (at least that we know of), they are just cops who got a call for a weirdo in a trench coat swinging a samurai sword and showed up to protect their city, only to be killed by that very same weirdo. I don’t know about you guys, but I can’t really get behind the systematic killing of police officers who are just trying to do their job. So lets move on to the designs of Blade: Trinity and talk about how they are easily the most uninspired pieces of shit this franchise has ever seen. Not only are the outfits ridiculous (zip-off sleeves? Really?) but even things like weapons are boring as shit. Just normal guns and normal bows. There is one weapon which looks like future bow, but even that is messy in both design and execution. As far as enemies go, it’s pretty bog-standard. The main villain (not Dracula, the other one) is obviously wearing fake vampire teeth, so whenever she speaks she slurs he words like a preteen with braces. The other vampires aren’t much different either. The big one in this film is Dracula, and oh boy did they drop the ball on this shit. In an effort to make this movie “cool” (I can only assume), the filmmakers decided to make Dracula look like a fucking predator. And the worst part is, when he doesn’t look like a predator he transforms into this fucking generic ‘surfer bro’ who is one puka shell necklace away from winning the big surf competition and running away with the girl of his dreams. And to make all of these designs even worse (if that’s even possible), the effects look like absolute shit. Seriously, Blade: Trinity is like an affront to the eyes. What makes these effects even worse is the fact that you know people worked hard on them. You know that some poor motherfucker worked his ass off in front of a computer screen for months only to have me belittle his work 13 years later. But let’s be honest, the effects do look like shit. And one of the worst parts is just how dated this fucking movie is. Just like the first Blade film, Blade: Trinity features weird camera effects, terrible CGI, and a terrible soundtrack (with dark core, trip hop, whatever kids listen to these days) that make it hard for you to look at this film with anything else but pity. It’s strange really, I didn’t know that a Blade movie could exist that was more dated than the first one; Blade: Trinity proved me wrong.

Overall Blade: Trinity is a mistake. A skid mark on an otherwise passable franchise. It learns form its past, taking everything that is wrong from both of its predecessors and putting them into one film. The only thing good about Blade: Trinity were the jokes coming from Ryan Reynolds, and even those get hushed by the writers.

I give Blade: Trinity a D