In Blade Trinity, Blade (Wesley Snipes) is aided in his battle against the whole Vampire race by the Nightstalkers, a pair of slayers named Hannibal King (Ryan Reynolds) and Abigail Whistler (Jessica Biel) , who is the daughter of Blade's aged mentor Abraham Whistler. The movie begins with a television discussion in which two facts are indisputable: 1) There are no Vampires, as they are only a psychological symptom of our psychosexual problems, and 2) This fellow Blade is a menace to society. Of course, it is the Vampires themselves who are making these assertions.
To make sure of this, at the end of the first great chase/battle of the movie, Blade is tricked into killing a human being disguised with fake fangs, and the death is surreptitiously filmed for television. Blade becomes Public Enemy Number One. His headquarters is raided by the FBI and Whistler (Kris Kristofferson), trying to destroy the computers, is killed--for real this time.
Blade is hauled off and interrogated by the police, most of whom are familiars doing the Vampires' bidding. The Nightstalkers appear and aid in his escape. They tell Blade that the Vampires have resurrected Dracula himself (Dominic Pursell) to help defeat Blade and to re-invigorate the Vampires' degenerate bloodline--something in the way of a celebrity guest appearance. (I thought Buffy killed him; maybe I'm wrong.) The rest of the movie is pretty much all fight scenes, and pretty good ones.
This may be the place to talk about the Third Movie Curse, the theory being that movies degenerate over time (like Vampire blood) and the third one is awful. Blade Trinity has been showered with some of the most scathing reviews I have ever seen, but I think the fans doth protest too much. Naturally, a sequel and a second sequel lack the energy and novelty of an original movie, and too often they are made for the money, with directors and actors phoning it in. Personally, the worst sequel I have ever seen was Cocoon II, which followed a brilliant movie with a fine ending that didn't need to be followed at all, and despite the returning cast of some of the greatest actors in Hollywood, was tired and listless throughout.
That is the true sin--boredom--and to criticise a movie for having too much action or too many special effects, when that is why we went to the theater in the first place, seems disingenuous to me. As proof, I have seen lists of remarkably good third movies used to disprove the Third Film Theory that feature exactly the same films listed elsewhere to prove it. Don't tell me Return of the Jedi or Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade are bad movies.
Blade Trinity may not be as good as the first or even the second, but it still has lots of Vampires and Blade killing them in spectacular battles, which is what we went to see. I believe, however, that it could have been better in three ways: 1) The Vampires are less compelling than they should be--but then, they are supposed to be degenerate, 2) Dominic Pursell is a strong physical presence whom you can believe going toe-to-toe with Wesley Snipes, but I believe he lacks the instant on-camera charisma that Dracula should have, and 3) Ryan Reynolds is not funny. He looks great with his shirt off, but he's not funny. Deadpool is funny, but Hannibal King is not. So it has to be the writing. The only laugh out loud for me was the shot of the Tomb of Dracula #10 comic book that started it all.