Blade: Trinity

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Blade: Trinity

Theatrical release poster
Directed by David S. Goyer
Produced by Peter Frankfurt
Wesley Snipes
David S. Goyer
Lynn Harris
Written by David S. Goyer
Based on Blade 
by Marv Wolfman
Gene Colan
Starring Wesley Snipes
Kris Kristofferson
Jessica Biel
Ryan Reynolds
Parker Posey
Dominic Purcell
Triple H
Music by Ramin Djawadi
The RZA
Cinematography Gabriel Beristain
Editing by Conrad Smart
Howard E. Smith
Studio New Line Cinema
Marvel Enterprises
Amen Ra Films
Imaginary Forces
Shawn Danielle Productions Ltd.
Distributed by New Line Cinema
Release dates December 8, 2004 (2004-12-08)
Running time 113 minutes
(Theatrical)
122 minutes
(rated R)
Country United States
Language English
Budget $65 million
Box office $128,905,366

Blade: Trinity is a 2004 American vampire superhero action film, written and directed by David S. Goyer, who also wrote the screenplays to the first two Blade films. It is the third and final film in the Blade trilogy, following on from Blade and Blade II and it is based on the Marvel Comics character Blade, played by Wesley Snipes. The story continues in 2006's Blade: The Series. This was Wesley Snipes' last theatrical release film until 2009's Brooklyn's Finest.

Plot

The film starts with a group of vampires, looking for "Drake", a.k.a. Dracula (Dominic Purcell). They subsequently find and wake him in a Syrian ziggurat tomb, although not before he kills one of their own number.

Being unaware of the existence of vampires, the world considers Blade (Wesley Snipes) to be a serial killer. The vampires capitalize on this misconception and succeed in framing Blade for the killing of a familiar posing as a vampire. During the ensuing manhunt, the FBI locate and attack the hideout. During the siege, Whistler (Kris Kristofferson) is mortally wounded and perishes after setting the hideout self-destruct. With his mentor gone, Blade allows himself to be captured.

The police prepare to hand Blade over to a group of supposed medics, who are, unknown to them, vampires. But he is rescued by Hannibal King (Ryan Reynolds) and Abigail Whistler (Jessica Biel), (whose main weapon is a customized compound bow). The two head a group of vampire hunters called the Nightstalkers, formed by Blade's mentor to assist him. King and Abigail reveal that the vampire Danica Talos (Parker Posey), who turned King into a vampire in the past (though he was since cured), has located Drake. Talos hopes that by resurrecting him, Drake will help save the vampire race by producing more daywalkers, and eliminate Blade. In his first confrontation with Blade, Drake shows an affinity for Blade, as they are both "honorable warriors". Ironically, while Drake is delivering his speech about honor, he is hiding behind a baby he has taken hostage; however, he appears to consider humans as unworthy of any consideration unless they first prove themselves. During the chaos, King is incapacitated by Drake.

Blade eventually learns of a bioweapon the Nightstalkers had created called Daystar, an airborne virus capable of killing every single vampire in the world. However, there are two catches. The first is that they need Drake's blood and it must be infused with the virus. As he is the first vampire, his DNA is still pure, which, infused with Daystar, will make it work to its maximum efficiency. The second: the virus could possibly kill Blade, since he is half-vampire.

Blade and Abigail learn of the vampire "final solution", which involves a warehouse where hundreds of homeless humans are being kept "alive" in a chemically-induced coma, (brain dead), trapped in body bags. This keeps in line with vampires needing live food sources if the vampire race were to take over the world. Blade has all of them put out of their misery, shutting down their life support.

The two return to find the Nightstalkers have been all but wiped out. The only exceptions are King, who has been kidnapped by Drake, and a young girl named Zoe (Haili Page), the daughter of one of the Nightstalkers. Blade and Abigail go to the Talos building to save their friends.

Meanwhile, King is chained and tortured by Jarko Grimwood (Triple H) and Asher Talos (Callum Keith Rennie) for information about Daystar. When this fails to get any information from him, Talos threatens that she will bite King and leave him to feed on Zoe. Drake tries to convince the young Zoe to become a vampire so that she won't have to die. He tells her that there is no God, heaven or angels, Zoe simply states to Drake "My friends are coming to kill you". Blade and Abigail eventually enter the building, and the fighting begins after they freed King. Abigail kills Asher and King kills Grimwood while Blade engages Drake in a sword battle. In the end, Blade impales Drake with the Daystar arrow, and releases it into the air, killing all the nearby vampires, including Talos. As Drake dies, he praises Blade for fighting with honor and tells him that through Blade, the vampire race will survive. Dying, he offers Blade a "parting gift"; he also warns him that the thirst will eventually win.

From here there are multiple endings:

  • Theatrical ending: As Blade fought honorably, Drake gives him a "parting gift" by transforming his body into a replica of Blade's just before he dies. The FBI captures the body of who they think is Blade and thus call off their manhunt for Blade. In the morgue Blade's body reverts into that of Drake's. Hannibal's voiceover tells the viewer that Blade is still out doing what he does, having rejected Drake's hopes of him prolonging the vampire race, and that the war will never end.
  • Unrated ending: The body captured by the FBI is Blade, but he's not really dead. Drake's body is nowhere to be seen, hinting his survival. At the morgue Blade sits up abruptly and attacks the FBI agents, and appears ready to bite a nurse on the neck. The ending is ambiguous as to whether Blade has retained his humanity or given in to his vampire thirst as Drake predicted. This is the ending seen on the director's cut of the film, and commentary on the DVD indicates it was the ending director Goyer intended.
  • Werewolf ending: The Daystar virus circles the globe and wipes out all vampires. Blade walks off into the sunset, his long battle finally over. The final shot is of the Nightstalkers battling a new enemy: werewolves. This version of the ending was used in the novelization of the film and is included on the DVD as an extra;[citation needed], it was rejected for use in the film itself early on in production, due to similarities to the vampires versus werewolves in the Underworld series, the discontinuity with the back story, and for simply being too silly in Goyer's opinion.[1]

Cast

Production

David S. Goyer had originally planned for the film to be set 20 years after the events of the second movie where the vampires finally had achieved world domination and enslaved all humans, with Blade being the last hope for humanity. Blade's slower aging could be explained by his vampire blood. The storyline was deemed too dark and was later dropped.

Colin Farrell was offered the role of Hannibal King, but turned it down. Ashley Scott was considered for the role of Abigail Whistler.

Originally, Blade was to have an on-screen sex scene in this film, since neither Blade II nor Blade included such a scene. Both Wesley Snipes and Goyer stated this on the Blade II DVD commentary. For unknown reasons, the planned sex scene was scrapped altogether. The sex scene was going to be with Abigail.

The film's opening chase scene was originally scripted for its predecessor (Blade II), but was scrapped due to budget concerns. The director wanted to include the scene, regardless of how much it was to cost. Another scene that was included, yet was originally scrapped, was the Vampire Blood farm scene (which featured human victims who were brain dead yet kept alive for their blood supplies). This scene was supposed to be featured in the first Blade movie. The director again wished to include it, to demonstrate the superiority of the vampire race, and that they are beginning to take over the world.

In Blade II, Snipes defeated the vampire security guards by using a few wrestling moves (which included a standing suplex and other moves). Two years later, WWE professional wrestler and former World Heavyweight Champion Triple H was cast into the film as Jarko Grimwood. Triple H used a lot of wrestling moves also, including a running powerslam, and his trademark "knee to the face" move.

Apart from the running powerslam move, Ryan Reynolds (who played Hannibal King) took the brunt of Triple H's wrestling moves, refusing to allow a stuntman to "do his job". Reynolds and Jessica Biel went through a grueling training regime all in an attempt to keep fit and stay true to their comic book counterparts. Biel, Reynolds and Dominic Purcell all went on a strict diet as well.

The scene of Blade on his knees, resting (or meditating) was originally scripted as having him hanging upside down like a bat and sleeping. This idea was scrapped from the script due to the difficulty of pulling the trick off.

In the scene when Hedge (Patton Oswalt) is introduced, he is seen wearing a Fantastic Four t-shirt displaying the 4's logo.

Goyer had prepared this particular sequel as grounds for a spin-off focusing on the Nightstalkers, but between the lackluster box-office and lack of audience interest, the spin-off never materialized.

Abigail Whistler was created exclusively for the film, much like Whistler himself was for the original. Although Whistler did appear in the Spider-Man animated series before his film appearance. Goyer claims that Whistler was taken directly from him, right under his nose.

Script

An early idea of Goyer was to include not only Hannibal King, but Frank Drake as well. Goyer early on changed Frank Drake to Frankie Drake, a female character with the same role. He then changed her to a female character called Rachel Van Helsing from the Tomb of Dracula comics, but then he heard about the movie Van Helsing and decided against it. He ended up creating the character of Abigail Whistler, Whistler's daughter, in her place, because it would have a stronger connection with the previous films' continuity.

Background

Release

For a limited time, the DVD release included a comic book that covered Abigail and Hannibal's origins prior to freeing Blade within the film. A mobile game of the same name and based on the movie was released on mobile phones running on java platform.

Lawsuit

Both Wesley Snipes and Kris Kristofferson, who at the time had become good friends after working on the two previous Blade installments, were reportedly unhappy with this film and Goyer's script decisions. They felt that too many new characters were added to the universe, and that Blade did not need any sidekicks besides Whistler.

In 2005, Snipes sued New Line Cinema and Goyer, claiming that the studio did not pay his full salary, that he was intentionally cut out of casting decisions and filmmaking process, despite being one of the producers, and that his character's screen time was reduced in favor of costars Ryan Reynolds and Jessica Biel.

Snipes contends that Goyer, his fellow producers, and New Line kept him out of the project's decision process, which ended up harming the film's performance (it made just $52 million, compared to the previous installments that had made $70 million and $82 million respectively). He says that a portion of his salary – $3.6 million – was withheld as punishment.

Language

In the DVD special features[2] Goyer talks about how cities are often multilingual. For example Blade: Trinity is shot in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada where signs are in English. Goyer decided to use the Esperanto language and flag as part of the fictional city where Blade is set.[3] The Esperanto flag is shown twice, at the entrance to the Police headquarters after Blade is rescued from jail, and on rooftop scene where Drake threatens to drop a baby over the edge.[3] Background elements such as signs and advertisements include Esperanto translations. Hannibal King is at one point seen watching the Esperanto language film Incubus on television, with one reviewer unkindly remarking that first time director "Goyer's grasp of directorial fundamentals (such as when to tilt the camera and when to shoot in close-up) is about as strong as Shatner's fluency in Esperanto."[4] The film's director of photography Gabriel Beristain makes a cameo appearance as the one-eyed newspaper vendor who talks to Whistler in Esperanto and discusses the public perception that Blade is a menace to society.

Release

Box office

The film's American box office take proved disappointing, at only $52 million.[5] Internationally it was somewhat more successful, pulling the film's overall gross to $129 million, matching the first Blade's take but coming behind Blade II, which grossed $150 million worldwide.[6][7]

Critical reception

The film has gained a mainly negative reception, earning a rating of only 26% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 157 reviews.[8] Rotten Tomatoes included the film at 76 out of 94 on a countdown of comic book to film adaptations.[9]

Roger Ebert, who gave Blade 3 stars out of 4[10] and Blade II 3½ stars,[11] gave Blade: Trinity only 1½ stars, writing: "It lacks the sharp narrative line and crisp comic-book clarity of the earlier films, and descends too easily into shapeless fight scenes that are chopped into so many cuts that they lack all form or rhythm."[12] Bob Longino of the Atlanta Journal said "It's silly, violent fun, sometimes mindlessly entertaining but hardly, if ever, engaging".[citation needed]

Soundtrack

Main article: Blade: Trinity (soundtrack)

A soundtrack containing hip hop music and electronic music was released on November 23, 2004 by New Line Records. It peaked at #68 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and #15 on the Top Soundtracks.

References

  1. ↑ "Blade Trinity Alternate Ending". YouTube. 2008-09-25. Retrieved 2011-01-07. 
  2. ↑ David S Goyer. 'Nightstalkers, Daywalkers and Familiars: The World of Blade: Trinity. 
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 António Martins, (16 March 2004). "Flags of the World, Blade Trinity, Unnamed City in the USA". Retrieved 2009-10-27. 
  4. ↑ Nick Schager (July 6, 2004). "Blade: Trinity, Film Review". Slant Magazine. Retrieved 2009-10-27. 
  5. ↑ "Blade: Trinity (2004)". Box Office Mojo. 2005-02-24. Retrieved 2011-01-07. 
  6. ↑ "Blade (1998)". Box Office Mojo. IMDB. 1998-10-16. Retrieved 2011-01-07. 
  7. ↑ "Blade II (2002)". Box Office Mojo. IMDB. Retrieved 2011-01-07. 
  8. ↑ "Blade: Trinity (2004)". Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster. Retrieved 2010-05-25. 
  9. ↑ "Comix Worst to Best". 
  10. ↑ Blade :: rogerebert.com :: Reviews
  11. ↑ Roger Ebert Blade II : Reviews
  12. ↑ Roger Ebert Blade: Trinity : Reviews

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