dir: David S. Goyer

New Line Cinema

Brandishing an ultraviolet belt, a chain-knife and a shotgun with an under-mounted stake launcher, Blade vanquishes his foes with a moral absolutism absent from men at Harvard who enjoy “irony” and “satire.” If more men were like Blade then our collective feminine lives would be infinitely superior.

Blade is a half-vampire half-man that is embroiled in a super-secret battle against the vampire conspiracy that controls the world and killed his mother. For those liberals already bristling with outrage, it is presumably coincidental that the vampires’ mission—controlling the media and corporations as part of an effort to de-purify human blood—is an exact replica of that imposed on the Jews by medievalist anti-Semitism.

In this, the third and final installment in the Blade series, Blade is living with his mentor (Kris Kristofferson), a maimed carpenter with dirty white curls—one might even call him a Christ figure—who continually prognosticates that Blade will be taken in by the F.B.I if he is not more careful about how he kills vampire allies. Blade, ironically, quickly falls for exactly this trap, indiscriminately killing a Vampire familiar. Soon, he is public enemy number one, in a media satire segment illustrated by a surprisingly cerebral Charlie Rose-esque clip. Then the F.B.I. closes in, killing Whistler for being Blade’s accomplice and capturing Blade.

Blade escapes police headquarters with the help of a group of “sleeper” human vampire hunters, known as the Night-Stalkers (“Night-Stalkers—sounds like the rejects from a Saturday morning cartoon,” growls Blade). The Stalkers (Ryan Reynolds and Jessica Biel) help Blade foil the super-secret plans of the vampires who have resurrected Dracula. And they do it in style.

The cast seems remarkable mostly for their unbridled enthusiasm, which was surprisingly effective. Reynolds is really self-consciously charming; his shiny new pair of abdominal muscles only brightens his charm. Jessica Biel is just as pissed off as she was when she played Mary on Seventh Heaven, but now she has an iPod on which she listens to “trip-hop” while killing vampires with a bow and arrow. It is just as holy a role only more aggressive. Professional wrestler Triple-H, in the role of a vampire thug, seems dumb, but conveys no actorly mannerisms. He is either really dumb or really good at acting really dumb. Kris Kristofferson is good at affecting Jesus with a laconic absence of humor, which I suppose is a skill in itself, like Al Jolson’s dancing in blackface. James Claveziel, take note: you should pray to have Kristofferson’s screen presence when you reach his age. And then, of course, Wesley Snipes is truly phenomenal.

Throughout Blade: Trinity I marveled over the omnipresent truculence of Wesley Snipes. He swears with authority. He wears an entirely leather jumpsuit and he doesn’t look uncomfortable. His head is half-shaved, half covered with tattoos. When horrendous rap is blaring in the background and he is killing vampires with semi-automatic weapons, he doesn’t even crack a smile.

Wesley Snipes has about two lines in the movie (One of them being, when asked whether he was ready to die, a reply of “I was born ready, motherfucker”) and that is okay, because Goyer understands that dialogue is really secondary when one can cover all plot points through images of perspiration, Jessica Biel washing blood off in the shower, and numerous, numerous phallic symbols (vanquishing vampires with a giant sword, shooting arrows with weird green goo in them into a target that causes a disease, vampire dildos, etc.)

Blade: Trinity, to its credit, is easily understandable, and has no pretensions of grandeur. In contrast to other vampire movies it is particularly understated and director David Goyer (the writer of the first two films) keeps Blade going at a quick, clipped pace. It is a product of its genre, the comic-book movie, and in that sense it accomplishes its goals. It is action-packed. It involves copious explanations of weapon use. And it features a truly haunting sequence set at a vampire blood-bank that finally has the guts to honestly address America’s burgeoning homeless problem.

—Rebecca M. Harrington