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Of the Marvel Comics brought to the screen, I always found the Blade series to be the most imaginative. It's the series' premise that vampirism is a manifestation of biology rather than the supernatural that makes the films so intriguing. All the wonders of contemporary biotechnology have been folded into Blade's world. The first film introduced us to the subculture of vampires, routinely feasting on the living in a manner that preserves its food source. We meet Blade (Wesley Snipes), a hybrid of human and vampire dedicated to the extermination of vampires worldwide, keeping his hunger under control with regular administrations of a serum. The freshness of the re-imagining of the whole vampiric myth made this the most involving film of the three. The second film upped the ante with a new mutation of vampires feeding on their predecessors; they are poised to become the ultimate threat if they're forced to turn to humans to survive. Blade must enter an uneasy truce with his foes to destroy this new breed. How can the stakes be raised again for a third film?
David Goyer, who wrote the screenplay for the first two films, takes his turn in the director's chair, shooting a third installment in which the ultimate vampire is awaken from a long slumber. This isn't simply a progenitor, this is the original vampire, the beast from which all others came. More than the source of the myth of Dracula, this is an entity thousands of years old. Immune to the effects of sunlight. Remarkably powerful and voracious. This could be the ultimate foe, capable of destroying Blade, the prime threat to vampiric survival. The vampires seek out this ultimate predator and ask for help. Blade must be destroyed.
The master villain of the show is simply known as Drake, and is played with insufficient intensity by Dominic Purcell. But that's not Blade's only problem. The FBI is seeking him for killing a human. And his world and his support system is about to collapse. Through a set of circumstances I will not describe, he finds new allies, Abigail Whistler (Jessica Biel), the daughter of Blade's surrogate father (Kris Kristofferson), and Hannibal King (Ryan Reynolds), an ex-vampire, terribly abused by vampire captors. They, too, are dedicated to the destruction of the vampire subculture. They will find themselves facing formidable foes, initially lead by Danica Talos (an unrecognizable Parker Posey) until Drake becomes the unchallengeable leader.
The film is a series of combative confrontations. Little new is revealed about the hidden culture of vampires with the possible exception of an industrialized approach to their food source. Imaginative weaponry is a hallmark of the series and some are quite original while some we've seen elsewhere (UV emitting bullets were prominent in Underworld). The script provides ample opportunity to wield them; the film is less plot-driven and is more action-driven. And that's where the film let me down. I was hoping for more intriguing concepts, new revelations about the hidden subculture and its interactions with humanity. The action orientation of the film leaves no justification for character complexity. Motivations are narrowly defined and single-minded.
Ryan Reynolds' Hannibal King is a smart-ass, tossing off sarcastic remarks and one-liners in the face of the most horrific danger. Without an apparent death wish, his attitude is a bit unbelievable. Parker Posey seems to enjoy chewing on the scenery; her performance was somewhat over the top. Jessica Biel joins the ranks of young, attractive, sexy, female superheroes (following in the steps of Kate Beckinsale, Jennifer Garner, Angelina Jolie . . .) and comports herself well. She and Reynolds trained extensively, and her moves are particularly convincing. But no one comes close to Wesley Snipe's athleticism. Expert in the martial arts, his fluidity is a pleasure to watch.
There is as much plot silliness and illogicality as you would care to notice. Would you choose to face formidable enemies with all your senses highly attuned? Or would you prefer to thrust earbuds in your ear canals and overwhelm your sense of hearing with raucous tunes from your IPOD? And speaking of music, Goyer's choices for the score elements are quite annoying. The orchestral score by Ramin Djawadi had sufficient gravitas to support the onscreen drama, but the hip-hop noise provided by RZA simply didn't have the right tone - no pun intended. It seemed out of place, lacking the musical weight to support the seriousness of the conflicts; his cues consistently drew me out of the movie.
The film is somewhat entertaining, and any fan of the series will enjoy seeing the ten or eleven minutes of extra footage, seamlessly integrated onto the original theatrical cut. But I was hoping for more.
The Video: How Does The Disc Look?
The film is presented in its theatrical aspect ratio of 2.35:1 in anamorphic video. This is a strong transfer by Laser Pacific Media. Modest edge halos are present in daylight scenes, but perhaps due to the dark nature of the film, they rarely intrude. Finely grained detail - seen in skin imperfections and fabric weaves - is excellent, and small object detail - judged by the clarity of facial features in medium to long shots - is also excellent. Color accuracy based on flesh tones and copious blood seems quite accurate. Black levels are very solid, but the presentation does seem to suffer from a bit of black crush. Shadow detail is below par. I suspect this was an artistic choice, related to the darkness of the film's themes. I noticed no macroblocking or mosquito noise.
The Audio: How Does The Disc Sound?
There are two six-channel tracks on this disc, Dolby Digital 5.1 EX and DTS 6.1 ES. Both are very enveloping tracks, but the audio effects heard in the surrounds are predominantly music rather than directional sound effects and pans. There are enough sound effects in the rear channels to remind me to have you enable rear center channel decoding. Exceptionally deep bass is present . . . frequently. I could feel it as effectively as I heard it. The orchestral score comes across well, but I was hard-pressed to assess the electronics-heavy rap elements. Sound effects are very effective but the dynamic range is somewhat limited. I had the distinct impression that dynamic range limitations were imposed to maintain a very high sound level throughout. If I had to characterize either track with one word, it would be "loud." Dialog is distortion-free throughout. When I made the inevitable comparison, I found the DTS track to have tighter bass and a slight edge in timbre.
Please note that this is another DVD track for which the X-Curve pre-emphasis has been removed. So if you have the feature, disable THX re-equalization or you'll be rolling off the top end unnecessarily.
Optional subtitles are in Spanish and English, for which Closed Captions are also included.
Supplements: What Goodies Are There?
The bit budget on disc one has been dedicated to the feature, so if you discount the DVD credits available by selecting the New Line logo from the main menu, the only two supplements you'll find here are two commentaries . In the first screenwriter - director David Goyer may be heard with Ryan Reynolds and Jessica Biel. Goyer seems to encourage Reynolds' clowning around. It seems clear that his character wasn't much of a stretch. Both actors detail their training regimens. Goyer kindly points out extended scenes, even though that information is available in a DVD-ROM feature, and he discusses the challenges of bringing his script to the screen. All offer anecdotes from the shoot. A pleasant listen.
The second commentary is by Goyer, cinematographer Gabriel Beristain, editor Howard E. Smith, production designer Chris Gorak, and producers Peter Frankfurt and Lynn Harris. This technical track is much more to my liking; I'm always interested in the technical details of how the film was made. Among the revelations are the insertion of subtle and unassuming CGI effects, the film's cost, and generally how scenes were shot. I enjoyed this track more than the first.
The second disc holds the bulk of the supplements. The first is Inside the World of Blade: Trinity, a very comprehensive documentary (1:46:33) organized into sixteen chapters and presented in respectable anamorphic video. The chapters may be played as one continuous extra with a "play all" option, or may be played as individual chapters. This documentary covers every aspect of the production and is highly informative. There is a little fluff or EPK-level material here; it occurs early, then things really get substantive. The subjects of the chapters tell you all you have to know about the content: story development, David Goyer directs, casting, cast training, set design, costume design, cinematography, facts for the uber-fan, designing the Blade weaponry, stunts & action, editing, visual effects, the music, sound design, enhancing the colors, and the future of Blade. The documentary is supported by English and Spanish subtitles.
Goyer on Goyer (5:11) is a cute little piece in which Goyer the screenwriter interviews Goyer the director. A bit more information not found elsewhere may be heard here. Next is an Alternate Ending (1:23) that may give Goyer a cameo, but ultimately doesn't work. It focuses on the wrong characters, possibly telegraphing the intent for the next film. And despite the Blooper Reel 's generous 10:58 runtime, it isn't very amusing. Perhaps the only moment of note is when Jessica Biel, who became very proficient with the bow, took out a camera with a remarkably accurate arrow.
There are two Galleries , one dedicated Visual Effects Progressions and the other Weapons. Of particular interest here is that the Effects Progressions feature displays animated CGI images, not stills. There are several, with runtimes that range from about one and a half minutes to three. The Weapons Gallery is a text-based description of each piece accompanied by an artist's drawing.
The trailers section includes the Blade: Trinity teaser trailer (1:26) and its theatrical trailer (2:24). There's also a collection of New Line trailers (12:51) that includes: Wedding Crashers, The New World, King's Ransom, and two DVD promos for the Extended Version of Return of the King and Constantine. Last is a text promo for the film's Soundtrack and its Deluxe Edition counterpart that includes a bonus DVD. The bonus DVD contains an animated short that's previewed here for 52-seconds. It appears to be Flash animation.
By the way, you may view either the theatrical cut or the DVD's unrated extended cut. And I'll also mention that within the keepcase, there are a couple of dozen pages of graphic novel for your amusement.
The 123-minute film is organized into twenty-five chapters.
Exclusive DVD-ROM Features: What happens when you pop the disc into your PC?
There are DVD-ROM features spread across both discs. For each, after the New Line skin loads atop the InterActual player, you'll be given a number of choices. On disc one skipping the access to movie, we have the by now familiar and very effective script-to-screen feature that allows you to follow the printed words as the film plays. You may print some or all of the script. Budding screenwriters take note.
Next is an encyclopedic feature entitled Interactive Viewing Experience. This feature is quite complex, requiring a significant demonstration tutorial complete with audio guidance and animation. You'll learn that you can find both text-based and image based cross-references made available while watching the film in this mode. The feature can best be described as a hyperlink-based database. You can examine storyboards or terms used in the film, find extended scenes, all kinds of nifty things. Very clever indeed. This is a separate application that must load and be shut down separately from the InterActual player.
The Blade Trinity Website Archive offers all of the website's content available from the DVD-ROM. It's even faster than a cable-modem. Two additional active links are the New Line website and New Line's Hotspot, which highlights the latest push from New Line.
On disc two, we'll skip the normal main menu choice (that's the one seen when the disc is played in a dedicated player); we begin with another Weapons Gallery. This is a more interactive experience, in which you are expected to click on a weapon, and then you may click on placards that expand to display printed descriptions of the weapon's features. This feature is flawed by the placards on the right side of the screen expanding off the right edge of the window, masking the view of some of the words. Click on the glyphs at the bottom of this screen to view characters using the weapons.
Concept-to-Creation is a series of concept drawings of characters. Click on Create and it changes to a photograph of the character as seen in the film.
And there are three links, one to the Blade: Trinity website (live, not archived), one to the New Line website, and the third to the Hot Spot webpage.
Easter Eggs
On disc two, you'll find a circular symbol just to left of "SPECIAL FEATURES" that, when selected, will show a 58-second take of Wesley Snipes, uh, waking up. And, on both disc, the New Line logo on the Main Menu displays disc credits.
Final Thoughts
Are you a Blade fan? Then go for it. Not yet familiar with the characters and the premise. Start at the beginning with Blade and work you way toward the third film. The disc set offers fine video and audio and generous supplements. This may be the weakest film in the series, but it's somewhat entertaining nonetheless.
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