I voted for Blade 2 as the best, and reluctantly, I'm gonna have to say no to a fourth film. Blade Trinity just did a lot of dumb s**t, the series ended just as quickly as it began, and Snipes has serious legal troubles to reconcile.
Honestly, I'd consider the first two films to be on the same level, but the second film really stepped things up in a lot of areas, just in the scope and the tone. It's a very different film to the first, but still feels familiar. Blade has a little more style about him in his look and the way he fights. I love how Snipes broke it down in the DVD commentary, explaining how every fight in the film was different, and he was right. The swordfight with Nyssa being more of a means of them testing each other, while other fights like the final fight with Nomak are just sheer ferocity. There was a lot of emotion in that fight, and the sense that Blade may have actually met his match. They really showed him getting his ass BEAT. It was a nice change of pace.
Storywise, you get to see a little more of the vampire nation, and the whole gothic/old world feel to everything. It was a nice contrast to the first film, that was very industrial and new age. And the reapers? I think where people complain vampire movies depict vampires too much as cool hip and young, Blade II reminded us that vampires can be vicious creatures. Del Toro really brought a great visual aspect to the film and to hear him explain the reapers from a biological standpoint, it made a lot of sense. It carried over the scientific aspects from the first film while doing something new, especially the reaper autopsy.
The great thing about the first film, though, as I've always said in speaking about Blade, it was cool to see a black superhero and not be beaten over the head with the fact that he was black. Furthermore, you had a black female companion in the mix that was just a strong character on her own. As much as she needed Blade's help, Blade needed her help. Karen Jensen was just an intelligent woman and able to hold her own.
Like Del Toro, Norrington was a great visual director for blade. THe look of the film is very sleek and self-aware. There's enough reality to it to draw you in, but it transitions very well into the more "out there" settings. This is most apparent in Blade and Karen's tracking of Krieger, as they go from the street, to the Japanese night club, to the archives, and the bible room where you've got all these large hanging scrolls in glass. Then the fight scene follows and everything just pops visual. The production design of both films is just stunning. They both managed to do great things with their budgets.
The problem with Blade Trinity is that Goyer isn't that great when it comes to visual concepts. I remember watching the special features for the first Blade, and seeing conceptual where that Norrington just splicing photos in Photoshop. He even did a photomanipulation of how he wanted Blade to look using a phot of Wesley from another movie. Del Toro did a lot of conceptual sketches for Blade two, things like weapons, the look of the reapers, and especially the ninja suits Nyssa and Assad wore when the break into Blade's headquarters. Goyer simply doesn't have that kind of visual flair. Blade's look in Trinity is horrible. The signature hairstyle looks terrible and doesn't even mesh with his real hair the way the others did. The goatee was okay, but the bad hairstyle messes it up. The outfit was just clunky and uninspired. Blade II saw Blade actually try to be somewhat stylish. The coat had a better flow to it, and vest was just perfect. Why couldn't the costume from Blade II come back? I guess a lot of the people who worked on Blade II were too busy with Guillermo Del Toro on Hellboy, because the only crew member who came back from Trinity was the Director of Photography, he even has a bit part in the movie!
Then there's the casting of Blade Trinity, which I think someone else commented on. It's terrible. I'm usually the first to say, let's give people a chance to do something different, but this isn't one of those times. If I were Blade, I'd be worried about The Nightstalkers watching my back too! Granted, Reynolds and Biel definitely put in the work to at least look like they could kick people's asses. But damn! Patton Oswald? Natasha Lyonne as a BLIND geneticist? This was a big tick in my foot, because it just goes to show how clueless Goyer was in constructing this film. WHERE'S KAREN JENSEN?!?!? Even if you had to recast her, the character would have fit right into the whole plot of Daystar. Why create a new character for this purpose, and furthermore make her blind for no justifiable reason? The girl looks laughably out of the place the whole film, to say nothing of the fact that when the time comes for her character to die and let out a final scream, Lyonne can't even do it! Her voice was so jacked from smoking, they had to have someone else do it!
Villains? What villains? Drake never shows any signs of being a formidable enemy. First time he meets Blade and the Nightstalkers, he runs off like a ***** and hides behind a baby. Nomak at least TRIED to take on Blade the first time they met. Drake spends most of the film pontificating about a whole heap of nothing. Unlike the first two films, there's no real urgency. Drake doesn't have any real plans that will immediately affect the world, and all Danika and her minions are doing is milking homeless people for blood. It was nice to see, because I know they wanted to show it in the first film, but other than that, nothing major was really going on.
Goyer had a perfect story point with the authorities and the media going after Blade, and he wastes it. From the time the Nightstalkers break him out, he's walking out with them in BROAD DAYLIGHT! Nothing was more groan-inducing than seeing the slo-mo walking scene building up to them going to Vance's office! All manner of weapons just dangling off their bodies in plain sight! And then, for whatever reason, the feds miraculously show up at Danica's building after the final fight with Drake.
The whole film was just a mess of missed opportunities and A LOT of forced humor. Hannibal Kings humor doesn't really hit its stride for me until the vampires capture him, and are questioning him about the NIghtstalkers' weapon for killing all the vampires. From then on, it's just hit after hit. The whole hairdo comment, as well as the stuff about the tracking beacon.
"It's in my left ass cheek."
SLAP!
"Okay, it's in my right ass cheek."
SLAP!
"Look, seriously, it's somewhere in the meat of my butt, right below the Hello Kitty tattoo!"
