This is a Dynamike Network podcast.
Welcome to the dynamic duel podcast a weekly show where we review superhero films and debate
the superiority between Marvel and DC By comparing their characters in stat-based battle simulations
I'm Johnny DC and I'm his twin brother Marvelous Joe and in this episode for Halloween We are
reviewing the not scary at all vampire film Blade Trinity Yeah, this is part of our spooky
October. We'll call it spooktober series of episodes this month culminating in one of the
biggest surprise I'm sure listeners will receive from this podcast ever. It's gonna be huge.
You guys are gonna love it. Be sure to tune in on Halloween day for an episode that's gonna
blow your socks off. The executive producers know what we're talking about, but the rest
of you are just gonna have to wait to find out later. Yeah, it's gonna be super fun. Of course,
this episode is a tie-in to last week's episode in which we did a duel between the vampire
and Dracula, Dracula being the main antagonist of Blade Trinity. Barely. I mean, barely, right?
Like, we'll talk about that later as we discuss the film in our review. Right. Before that,
we're going to break down the comic book movie news from the past week of which there was
really nothing. We're going to be talking about video game news in this episode, because later
on in this month, Spider-Man 2 for the PlayStation 5 is dropping. It's a big deal for all the
video game people. So we're going to talk about the latest trailer for the game. As always,
we list our segment times in our episode description, so feel free to check out the show notes if
you want to skip ahead to a particular topic. As our listeners may know, our dual simulator
is so advanced that it's gained sentience and has named itself the artificial life form for
running extensive duels. Just a rather very intelligent simulator. Nine thousand or Alfred
Jarvis. Nine thousand is a quick message for our listeners. So listen up. Why hello there.
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your Pip Cheerio.
Yeah, I can't wait for that one. That's going to be an awesome episode. I'm so glad they're
returning. Make sure to tune into Send Your World the day after on Thursday to find out
who would win between Devilman and Kaguya Atsuzuki from Naruto. It actually sounded like you pronounced
that correctly. Who knows? Yay. Visit dynamicpodcasts.com or click the link in our show notes to listen
to all of the shows in the Dynamike Podcast Network. But with that out of the way, quick
to the no prize.
A No Prize is an award Marvel used to give out to fans. Our version, the Dynamic Dual No Prize,
is a digital award we post on Instagram and in our email newsletter for the person that
we feel gave the best answer to our question of the week. Last week, we asked, which prior
DC film or television series would you most hope remained in James Gunn's DCU continuity
and why? Of course, this was coming off of the news that James Gunn had said that Viola Davis,
and Shalomaritwanya were maintaining their roles in his new DC universe. Yeah, we wanted to
know what else you guys wanted to survive the transition. Got some great answers, got a lot
of answers. So let's go ahead and break down our honorable mentions and the no prize winner.
Our first honorable mention goes to Unworthy Collector from Instagram who said, Hey guys,
it's Unworthy. First of all, my cousin Andrew Bennett was not impressed with Joe's nonsense
last week. But as far as DC shows that I'd like to see continue in James Gunn's universe, I'd
really like to see them retool the Titans characters from the show and include Ray Fisher's cyborg.
Because I really think what the DC universe is going to need moving forward is definitely
a Titans team. Right, of course, the Titans was a series that premiered on Max. They went
through four seasons. Not a bad show, actually a pretty good show that felt like it fit right
in with the Snyderverse. Cyborg of course was a character that's in the Doom Patrol television
series, but I think he makes more sense as a part of the Titans, and I would love for him
to be a part of that in a new DC universe. Well, Unworthy mentioned specifically Ray Fisher,
who played Cyborg in the Justice League film. Yeah, that guy's career is probably not going
to continue with any Warner Brothers project. So I guess we'll have to settle for Joyvon
Wade. Which, that's not really settling in my opinion. You know, I think he does a great
job with the character. How important do you think it is to have a successful Titans team
within a DC cinematic universe? Well, you know, it seems like since they're starting off with
a film literally called Superman Legacy, that legacy itself will be a major component of
this new cinematic universe that James Gunn is establishing. You know, you could also look
at projects. like Paradise Lost and maybe exploring Hippolyta and you know even Batman and Robin,
they're brave in the bold film to see how legacy will play a role. I think the Titans will be
huge in this upcoming universe. I hope they are at least. Yeah, totally makes sense thematically
with the direction that Guns Universe seems to be headed. So great answer Unworthy. Shout
out to your cousin, Andrew Bennett, who works at the H&R Block as an accountant. Our next
honorable mention goes to... Colby Hentges who said, Hey boys, Colby Hentges. If James Gunn
keeps one DC show, I want it to be why the last man. I know the show didn't get off to a great
start, but if it's anything like the books, they just get better and better every issue
and the supporting cast on the show was fantastic. Agent three 55 and Dr. Mann were great. Diane
Lane is his mom was awesome. I'd like to see it get a better shot. So I did not watch the
Why the Last Man television series. It was on FX and I just didn't have access to that. But
I am a huge fan of the comic book series, Why the Last Man. And everything I saw from the
trailers made it look like the television series was not a terrible adaptation. And I was really
heartbroken to hear it was canceled because I would have loved to have seen that whole
series go to the very end, which is a really powerful ending. So yeah, if James Gunn can
somehow revive that show, I definitely think that's within his power as one of the CEOs
for DC Studios, that would be awesome. Well, Why the Last Man is published by DC's imprint
Vertigo, but it's not part of any DC universe, you know? So I don't see it joining James Gunn's
DCU at all. Well, no, I don't think it needs to be a part of the DCU. It's just a story
that came from the publisher. that I think would be great to see continued in live action. Oh,
gotcha. Yeah, we didn't review Why the Last Man, but we also didn't review Sweet Tooth
as well, largely because we like to stick in the superhero genre when it comes to the stories
that these publishers put out there. Right, it's the same reason we didn't review The Kitchen.
Right. Great answer, Colby. Our next honorable mention goes to Marquis High. I would have
to go with my man Ben this time, and I'm sorry, I- I felt it so much that I forgot to throw
my name in. This is Mark C, Mark C1684. Just calling into you gentlemen. Ben Affleck reads
the comics. He's been a part of the material. He loves the stuff. And I thought he was a
good Batman. Yay, picked up a gun and killed some people. But you know, sometimes. Thanks
guys. Have a good one. Yes, sometimes Batman just has to pick up a gun and kill some people.
That's what I've always said. I mean that happened in the nightmare vision, you know, it's not
like Batman and the prime timeline was just cap and fools. But no, I love Ben Affleck as
Batman. And I know he says that he's done with the role. But considering the first project
we may see him in is this Brave and the Bold Batman and Robin movie, it makes sense that
they would go with a Batman that's, you know, maybe in his 50s like Ben Affleck is. Yeah,
established and totally believable as a father figure to a young Robin. Like, I don't think
you could have Robert Pattinson be a part of the DCU having a kid in his second onscreen
appearance, you know? It would have to be like a baby for it to work. Yeah. So it really seems
like the Batman franchise directed by Matt Reeves will definitely not be part of the DCU. With
the direction, it sounds like James Gunn is taking his universe and it does not sound like
that as much as I would love. for the Batman to be a part of that. I don't think it's gonna
happen. So why not keep Ben Affleck? I would not hate it. Great answer, Markey. Hi, we wanna
give a quick shout out to the other answerers, Abner O'Terry, Christopher Manati, Micky Mathengian,
and Travis Herndon for taking the time to visit our website and record your answer. But the
winner of this week's No Prize is Lizzie Dyer Arnie, who said, Hey, it's Lizzie. I definitely
want Black Adam to remain in the James Gunn continuity because it introduced the Justice
Society of America. Now they're the very first OG superhero team. I think they're very important
to the DC universe and I would like to see some older heroes trying to save the day. It'd be
a lot of fun. So with the exception of Henry Cavill's cameo in the post-credits scene at
the end of Black The movie overall was pretty removed from the larger DCEU. Viola Davis's
Amanda Waller notwithstanding, but she's gonna continue into the DCEU anyway, so it doesn't
matter. We're getting JSA characters in Superman Legacy, we know. We're getting Hawkeye Girl
and Mr. Terrific, who weren't seen in Black Adam. So I still think that they could all
be a part of the same JSA team together. So yeah, I would love it if Black Adam. was still
a part of the new universe's continuity. I don't see a reason why that wouldn't be the case.
Yeah, it would be cool to see all this Hodge again as Hawkman. Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure
if there's any bad blood between James Gunn and the Rock, considering that James Gunn kind
of took over the universe when the Rock wanted to shepherd that role. But I would love to
see the Rock return as Black Adam, regardless. Yeah, we spoke earlier about the theme of legacy
regarding the Titans superhero team. JSA is also all about legacy, probably even more so
than the Titans because JSA actually spans multiple generations of heroes. So, you know in keeping
with that theme, I think JSA absolutely should have an important role within James Gunn's
DCU. Yeah, 100% and the JSA was one of the coolest aspects of the Black Adam movie. So I would
love to see all of those characters return. Great answer Lizzie, you win this week's No
Prize. If you're the listener want a shot at winning your own No Prize. Stay tuned till
later on in this episode when we'll ask another question of the week. And now that that's done,
on to the news!
Alright this past week we got a new trailer for Marvel's Spider-Man 2 video game that's
gonna come out exclusively on the PS5. In just a few weeks, on October 20th, the trailer was
called B-Grader Together and it shows Peter Parker's Spider-Man fighting alongside Miles
Morales' Spider-Man against the villain Venom. And the game looks incredible. You know, it
looks like both characters are dealing with their own drama and stuff like that, but they
both, by the end... have this resolve of being Spider-Man and they take on Venom and the graphics
look incredible. We know that gameplay is going to be split up between the two characters and
offer very different feels to the gameplay where Miles Morales has the powers of the Venom Blast
and invisibility, whereas Spider-Man will not only have the symbiote powers for some parts
of the game, but this trailer also reveals that he'll also have the Iron Spider or Superior
Spider-Man mechanical arms that come out of his back. So it looks like it's adding a whole
lot more dynamics to the Spider-Man game that initially came out with the last generation,
widely acclaimed as one of the best, if not the best, superhero video game of all time.
I know Jonathan disputes that with the Arkham video games, but he's wrong. The best superhero
video game is actually Spider-Man for the PS4. I mean, I've played the Arkham games, so that's
just, you know, for my opinion. But no, I hear great things about the Spider-Man game. And
I've played some amazing Spider-Man games in my time. So I don't not believe it. Of course,
Jonathan and I aren't huge gamers. We used to be, but kind of fell out of that when I stopped
buying the current consoles. Like, I don't have a PS5, which is devastating to me when I look
at how cool this game is. I have not played the PS4 Spider-Man game, and I do want to get
to that. I do have a PS4. I should probably get the game. What the hell am I doing? Well,
I don't know you had a PS4. Yeah. Well, my wife does. Yeah, she bought the Harry Potter game.
She's probably more of a gamer than I am. It's like it's really hard for me to find the time.
I sound like a total lame ass right now. Yeah, it sounds like excuses. But, you know, it's
hard to find time to play the games when you have a podcast. Again, excuses. I would find
the time. Yeah, I definitely should. Because I'm sick. I can't go into work today. or tomorrow,
play it straight all the way through. I really hope no one from my work is listening to this
because I've never done that. And well, the Batman Arkham games are coming out for the
switch later. Jonathan, you have a switch. Are you going to get those games? Oh, absolutely.
I mean, I'm really sad that the release date for that got delayed from this month, October
to December, because I was ready to play it. Like so ready. But, you know, I've also already
played those games. Yeah. If the superhero movies ever kind of like die down. due to like superhero
fatigue or something like that. And we actually have the time to dedicate to reviewing superhero
video games. That is totally a direction I would love to take this podcast. I mean, Marvel,
if you want to send Joseph a PS5 and a copy of the game, he'll review it. And a million
dollars, totally. I will accept that. Okay, I mean, that's a bit much. What are you doing?
Yeah, I may have overshot. You always ask for more, then they'll just meet you in the middle.
Exactly, now you get it. But a word on the street is that Marvel has been making some internal
changes to dedicate more resources toward producing video games because they know that they're
slacking in that department given the recent critical and or commercial failures of Guardians
of the Galaxy, The Avengers, and Midnight Suns. The new Wolverine game produced by Insomniac
Games is still on track to come out, still supposed to be amazing. We know that Motive is creating
an Iron Man game and Cliffhanger Games is creating a Black Panther video game. From here on out,
all Marvel games are incredible 100% of the time. I'm still waiting to hear more about
Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League and the Wonder Ruin video game. Yeah, a lot of good
stuff in the works. I definitely gotta get a current gen console. Besides the Switch, because
for some reason, a lot of stuff doesn't get ported over to the Switch. Or it just looks
really ugly when it does, like for Mortal Kombat 1. Right, right. But speaking about video games
that we have not seen yet, that brings us to our question of the week.
What Marvel or DC character that has not headlined their own video game do you want to see get
a solo game? Yeah, I don't know if we've asked this question before. If we have, it's been
a long time. So we could definitely do with a fresh set of answers. But I think it's fun
to think about potential video games that could exist and what they would be like and what
characters would be in them. For this question, we're looking at more solo games in the vein
of Arkham Asylum or Spider-Man for the PS4 or 5. Right, or Wolverine, Iron Man, Black Panther,
Wonder Woman, all of these solo games that are coming out, games like those. Record your answer
at dynamicduel.com by clicking on the red microphone button in the bottom right hand corner of the
screen which will prompt you to leave us a voicemail. Your message could be up to 30 seconds long
and don't forget to leave your name in case we include you on the podcast. We'll pick our
favorite answer and award that person a Dynamic Duel No Prize that we'll post to Instagram
and our email newsletter. Be sure to answer before October 14th.
But I think that does it for all the news for this episode. Now let's move on to the main
event, where we reviewed the 2004 Marvel film, Blade Trinity.
Alright Blade Trinity came out in 2004 starring Wesley Snipes, Ryan Reynolds, Jessica Biel,
and directed by David S. Goyer. Yes, this was made by the very same David S. Goyer who wrote
the previous two Blade films, The Dark Knight Trilogy, and Man of Steel. The guy has done
a lot for the comic book superhero genre and has had some incredible ideas along the way
and just seemingly chose not to use any of them for this movie that he directed. Yeah, I remember
looking forward to this movie specifically because David Esquire was so heavily involved. And
I also remember being horribly disappointed by the final result that we got. For sure.
Yeah, the film was definitely not up to the standards that had been set by the previous
two Blade movies, which were directed by a tours in Stephen Norrington and of course, Guillermo
del Toro. And they were fantastic. Those are great movies. Yeah, great movies. If you're
not already aware how disappointing Blade Trinity is because you haven't seen it. Go ahead and
pause this review now and go watch either Blade 1 or Blade 2, not Blade Trinity, because it
really just doesn't compare to the otherwise stellar franchise. And the film's really only
enjoyable on a very surface level, in that yes, it has action, it has vampires, but it doesn't
have any character building, it doesn't have the dark narrative or artistic style that made
the previous film so good. I don't recommend this film. If you're still here, here's your
spoiler warning. we've established that the movie is not great and the quality is largely
the result of a troubled production behind the scenes. I don't usually go into behind the
scenes stuff in my reviews because I think the film should stand on its own without knowing
how the sausage is made, as it were, or the blood sausage in this case. But I think it's
important to know the context here because when you bite into a blood sausage and it tastes
like shit, it's one thing to say, hmm, yes, this sausage was not enjoyable. But really,
I would be like, how did shit get into this sausage, man? My wife told me to scrap the
whole sausage metaphor, but you know what? I'm keeping it because it fits. Because behind
the scenes, Wesley Snipes basically sabotaged the filming process because he knew the movie
would be bad and didn't want to be involved in it even though he was likely contractually
obligated. Well, he was an executive producer on it, wasn't he? Exactly. Yeah. And that's
kind of where the whole issue stems from. Because... As an executive producer, he did have some
authority here that was for the most part ignored. You know, at first he didn't like the script,
which I entirely understand, and he didn't like the studio's first choice of director, which
prompted New Line to name David Goyer as the director, which Snipes also didn't like, which
is again totally understandable because Goyer sucks as a director. Good writer, shitty director.
And Snipes was understandably pissed that he had little to no control over the production
despite the fact that he was not only the star and a big part of why the franchise was so
successful to begin with, but he also had an executive producer credit. That all I understand
where Snipes was coming from. I think he understood that the scripts needed to be reworked from
the ground up, basically, and I couldn't agree more. What I can't agree with is how he exacerbated
the situation by essentially not participating during the shoot. You know, it made the film
even worse than it would have been, and essentially he handed the spotlight to other characters
that were frankly less interesting. than himself. You know, it made him look unprofessional.
And at the end of the day, everyone was talking more about how surprised they were that Ryan
Reynolds could be an action star than about the character of Blade. Yeah. According to
some actors that were on the set, like Patton Oswalt, Wesley Snipes basically stood in his
trailer the whole day, smoking weed, didn't come to set when he was called and even got
into some physical altercations with David S. Goyer and other cast members. I feel like I
would have slapped David S. Goyer too. if I were made to star in this movie. Jeez! So,
but no, like, you know, the whole communicating with other production members via post-it notes
and stuff like that is just childish. I can't imagine how awkward and uncomfortable the shooting
experience was for this film. And you know, the end result speaks for itself. You know,
the film crew had to make a lot of concessions, the script had to be changed regularly, all
to work around Wesley Snipes, who was missing in action. Beyond that though, there were a
lot of really... decisions made along the way that had nothing to do with Wesley Snipes.
You know, story-wise, the whole Blade Trinity story is nonsensical in that it shoehorned
Dracula, the fucking Lord of Vampires, mind you, into a plot that really relegated him
as a henchman to the House of Talos vampires who were plotting to set up a chain of human
blood farms, even though that whole plan had very little bearing on anything outside of
the scene that it was in. The film really is about Blade joining this ragtag group of vampire
hunters known as the Nightstalkers, where we see him suffer through Ryan Reynolds endless
exposition about Dracula, the vampire final solution and the chemical weapon that the team
had been working on that is all told and barely shown. Yeah, I could see how Wesley Snipes
made the argument that he felt like the whole franchise was moving in a direction to highlight
these new upcoming stars and characters and not him. Again, as we know, he's partially
to blame for that because he was on set a lot. But the whole film, I kind of felt like Ryan
Reynolds was sort of making fun of Blade. And I think that's a really bad position to put
the character in. For sure, for sure. You know, Wesley Snipes is a goddamn legend. You know,
Passenger 57, always bet on Black. The dude has made some incredible action films over
the years and to really have him kind of make way for this new up and coming generation of
former TV stars, I think was a little insulting to his ego, but rightfully so, you know, in
my opinion. Absolutely. Yeah, I agree. Ryan Reynolds is just lucky that he was charismatic
enough and a good enough action star to actually parlay this into future comic book roles and
eventually the ultimate comic book role for him in Deadpool. Yeah, watching this movie,
I just was thinking like, how pissed off is Wesley Snipes that the Deadpool movies did
so financially well? Well, I'm sure he probably wished he had some of that money, honestly.
Yeah, despite having a lackluster story, what the movie does have in spades is attitude.
You know, it features a badass trio of vampire hunters that kick all kinds of ass shot in
a cinematic style reminiscent of a made for TV sci-fi film. You know, Gone are the stylistic
worlds of the first Blade films where they had deep shadows, you know, satin reds, sharp contrasts
that were a huge part of the visual appeal of the franchise. Also Gone is the slick fight
choreography which in this film was replaced by what looked like slow and over rehearsed
gestures. Also gone from Blade Trinity is all the danger because the worst crime that this
film commits is that it shows us that Blade is not special. Literally anyone can become
a vampire hunter here because apparently vampires are easier to kill than spiders. You know,
they just explode into flames with the slightest poke. Apparently you can fight a vampire hand
to hand without worrying about them trying to bite you or having enhanced strength. Right?
Yeah, the vampires were so- weak in this film compared to the prior two installments. Yeah,
there were no threat whatsoever. So despite the fact that there was, in fact, action in
this movie, there were no stakes to the action. Pun intended. There were actually lots of stakes.
But, you know, the silver kind. Well, I don't know if I necessarily agree with you there,
because this film set up some of the more interesting stakes of the entire franchise in the blood
farms. They didn't do nearly enough with that. The fact that they could take hundreds of homeless
people from cities and just farm them for their blood was pretty shocking the first time I
saw this movie. I feel like those stakes pale in comparison to the stakes of Blade 2 where
we saw that Reavers could multiply so quickly and to the stakes of Blade 1 where Deacon Frost
became Lemagra. Dude, Lemagra was not a threat to society. It was supposed to be this blood
god and it was just some dude who could regenerate a hand. Like big fucking deal. These stakes
were way more heavy than Lemagra. No, Lamagra was all powerful and if they didn't have the
EDTA that exploded him, he would have been unstoppable. Someone would have figured that out sooner
or later. Oh, sure. OK. No, I think the immediate threat of this blood god guy coming at you
seems much more high stakes than people you don't know about getting kidnapped. But what
if it was somebody you knew about? What if it was like your child or your mom or something
like that? You know, the potential is there. Yeah, then they probably should have showed
something like that where this was directly affecting the people that were in the film.
Oh, absolutely. I think instead of killing or kidnapping the Night Stalkers that they were
working with, they should have put them into a blood farm. They should have. That would
have been way better than what they did. The film does have a few things going for it. I'll
say that the visual effects were decent enough. I really like the fire effects when the vampires
would die. And while the jokes felt entirely out of place for a Blade film, there were some
that made me chuckle because Ryan Reynolds has great delivery. But let's talk more about the
cast in our character breakdown. starting with Blade, aka Eric Brooks, who's played by Wesley
Snipes. As we discussed before, he was entirely checked out nearly this entire film and was
a huge detriment to the production. All that said, Wesley Snipes was fine, I think, in this
movie and the stuff that he was actually in. I think he should have cooperated to be in
more of the film because after giving us two awesome movies in Blade and Blade 2, I think
he at least deserved a worthy send off, which he did not get. Yeah, I think he started off
great in the movie for the most part, up until Hannibal King showed up and then the Night
Stalkers kind of just took over. Yeah. The scene where he's, you know, being interrogated and
stuff, I thought he did a OK job with his performance and really nothing after that was memorable
in any way. Yeah, I think largely because Blade has no real arc in the movie. In the beginning,
he loses his mentor and he's arrested. And even Donna Katalos was like, you're all alone, Blade.
No one's going to help you now. So they're really hammering home that he's by himself, he's isolated,
but all of a sudden, he has the opportunity to bond with and form a new family with the
Night Stalkers who rescue him. And you would think that the film would be about him learning
how to adopt this new family into his life and become part of something greater, but in the
end, he basically says fuck him and goes off on his own. You know, he doesn't really learn
anything. He doesn't grow as a character. He simply defeats the villain at the end and moves
on. I think the theme they were trying to go with for the character was purpose and purposelessness
in your life. Like, what do you do when you're no longer needed? And what do you do when everyone
around you has died that you love and you don't really want to be around anymore? I think the
whole notion of a virus that could lead to the extinction of the vampire race and potentially
even Blade was one that he grappled with barely in this movie, and I think it's something that
they should have explored a little bit more. just the mortality around Blade. Well, I mean,
because as long as vampires exist, Blade has a purpose. Exactly. And at the end of the film,
they don't really do anything to address that. They say, you know, oh, the fight is never
lost, but isn't it because that virus is gonna spread around the world and kill all the vampires?
It of course is gonna move faster than Blade is gonna be able to. So what is Blade's purpose
at the end? They don't really say. Well, there's a lot of ambiguity as to what the Daystar Virus
actually did because Somerset's character stated that all the vampires in the immediate vicinity
would automatically die. I know that they were working on something that would destroy all
vampires, but that's not what she said in her video. I think really the Daystar Virus only
affects a limited range before it becomes too spread out into the atmosphere. So they're
gonna have to make more of this stuff and use it against more groups of vampires, I think,
to actually kill off all of them. And that's where Blade's mission is headed at the end
of the film. Okay, I didn't hear someone say the whole vicinity thing. I was under the impression,
I guess, just in this post-COVID world, that viruses like to spread. Yeah, I don't think
this works quite that way because the vampires die immediately, as opposed to walking around
and spreading it to other vampires. So that makes sense. It would be interesting when Daystar
is put into mass production, if it is. And then Blade uses it on all the vampires. And then
what happens? You're right. I guess, like Hannibal King's character asked, does he start teaching
karate at the Y or something, who knows. Right. Let's move on to Hannibal King, who was played
by Ryan Reynolds. My first thought watching this movie for the first time was that Ryan
Reynolds was great, but that he was in an entirely different movie. The more I think about it
though, this is entirely his movie. This is more Hannibal King's movie than it is Blades.
And while Ryan Reynolds absolutely deserved his big action break at the time, because he
turned into a fascinating action star, I do wish that it wasn't with this movie. You know,
they should have put them in 2004's I, Robot or something, but keep them away from the Blade
franchise because cool gothic action horror does not jive with quirky, jokey action films
like Deadpool. Like the type of action films that Ryan Reynolds is great at. Yeah, I've
always considered the Blade franchise to be primarily horror and primarily horror and action.
And you're right. The more you make fun of that whole thing. the less serious it becomes. And
I think that's a detriment to the franchise. Absolutely, yeah. I think they were going for
a foil for Blade because you know, Wesley Snipes Blade is colder than ice, but it was just too
much. It was just way too much. Yeah, too many jokes, too much comedy for what should be a
very serious, straightforward vampire action horror. Hannibal King's motivation revolves,
I think, redemption for the fact that he used to be a vampire. You know, he wants to get
Blade on board with the Night Stalkers, but the guy just isn't game. So he tries to find
humor in the situation. But the jokes that he makes almost seem more like Ryan Reynolds real
life reaction to the issues with production than any sort of actual character arc for Hannibal
King. But fortunately for Ryan Reynolds, he's charismatic and probably ends up being the
best part of the film because of that. Yeah, interestingly so. His backstory was interesting
as well, although I am confused how they cured his vampirism. Was that something to do with
Karen from the first Blade movie? Or was that Somerset? I don't remember if they said. Yeah,
in the first Blade film, Dr. Karen Jensen invented a cure for herself that could only be applied
to people who weren't born vampires. You know, she was bitten by Quinn in the first film,
and yet she ended up not becoming a vampire. And so I think this film carries forward that
established canon in that there is a vampire cure. I'm really surprised they didn't find
a way to weaponize that, though, because they're making a weapon out of freaking everything
in this movie. It's like, why not create a vampire cure arrow or bullet or something? Right, if
you could put light into a bullet, you know, you could definitely put a chemical agent into
a bullet. And instead of, you know, killing all these vampires who probably didn't want
to be turned in the first place necessarily, some of them at least, you can cure them and
have them go back to living their own lives and perhaps even get more vampire hunters in
the process. Pretty interesting. Let's go ahead and move on to Abigail Whistler, who is played
by Jessica Beale. Jessica Beale is in fact in this movie. And that's pretty much all there
is to be said about her performance. She barely had anything to do here. She kicks a lot of
ass and she was fine at that, but she was so one note. She barely has any dialogue, you
know, right. As Whistler's daughter, they should have given her much more character development
other than a gratuitous shower scene where she reflects on how her father didn't want her
to be a hunter, because that was literally all we really got. That really informed who she
is. Yeah, that shower scene was so pointless. I would have loved to get some more dialogue
between her and Blade and really just talk about her father. It could have been such a great
like mentor mentee kind of relationship where Blade feels very protective of her and it feels
responsible for her in some way, almost like as a replacement father figure. But we got
none of that. I have to wonder if that was the original intention for the character. Although
it may not be because I do remember reading somewhere that Abigail was originally Abigail
Van Helsing. No, it was Rachel Van Helsing from the comics. But I guess they couldn't do that
because of Hugh Jackman's Van Helsing film. Yeah, Hugh Jackman's Van Helsing film came
out the same year that this one did 2004. So they kind of had to steer clear of that because
they would have got sued probably by Universal. Van Helsing actually ended up being a much
cooler vampire hunter film than Blade Trinity did. Yeah, yeah, actually, Van Helsing is like
a guilty pleasure of mine. Let's go to move on to Dracula, aka Drake. I don't know why.
played by Dominic Purcell. Fucking god damn it. Dracula in this movie sucked. And I know
he's a vampire and he's supposed to suck, but in this case, it wasn't blood that he sucked.
It was ass. Who was this character? Because it wasn't Dracula from the comics. I know that.
You know, up to this point, the Blade franchise was known for its really compelling, cool villains
like Deacon Frost and Nomak. both of whom were incredibly complex and dangerous characters.
But freaking Drake was a bargain bin mishmash of the two that they kind of slapped some leather
pants on and said, nailed it. You know, the comics character of Dracula here was entirely
wasted. He was uninteresting with no real motivations. You know, he came with the vampires to the
house of Talos because God knows why. Right. He didn't even want to be woken up, you know.
He has no respect for modern vampires because they don't live by the sword like him and Blade.
And yet, he does the bidding of these other vampires despite the fact that they came up
with the laziest means of acquiring blood. Not through hunting, but by essentially farming
them. And then he fights Blade only to be cheap-shotted in the end with the arrowhead and he's like,
oh you fought with honor Blade. Everything about Drake was just horrible. It was ridiculous.
I don't want to say everything. I do like two things that they did with him. One was making
him like this Sumerian ancient, almost like deity type character. They really stepped away
from Bram Stroker's version and I guess the comic version, like you mentioned, to make
him something much more ancient. I thought that was kind of interesting. I also didn't hate
the look of him when he was in his full vampire form. I wish they would have given him wings
or something like that. because that would have been very different from something that Blade
has gone up against in the past. Yeah, maybe it was out of budget or whatever. But those
two things were fine. Everything else you write, that was garbage. Yeah, actually, Steven Norrington
designed the look of full out transformed Dracula as this like deeming creature. I did think
that was pretty cool up until the point where he said motherfucker, which I thought was the
cheesiest shit I've ever seen in my entire life. So stupid. I love they had like a chain on
to those so hip. It makes no sense for Demon Dracula to be wearing a gold chain. Last but
not least, let's talk about Donnika Talos who is played by Parker Posey. I thought I couldn't
roll my eyes harder at a villain in a film more than Drake and yet here we have Parker Posey
as Donnika Talos who is so campy it's like she thought she was in the Joel Schumacher Batman
movies. She looks and acts so ridiculous it's clear Parker Posey didn't have any knowledge
or perhaps respect for the source material. Or maybe she was just too uncertain how to
approach the character, so just decided to ham it up with the fangs. Regardless, Parker Posey
was not good and I don't understand how she was cast in this movie. I kind of feel like
she hadn't seen the prior Blade films. Oh, I guarantee you she didn't. Yeah, no, I do feel
like a lot of it was due to the way she was written. I think she was just trying to make
the best of what was on the page for her. But yeah, it was not well done by any means. Damn
it, Blade. We had him. And her relationship with Drake was just weird. Because like, she
didn't want to control him, she didn't want to like clue him in onto anything that they
were doing. It just didn't make any sense whatsoever. Well, she just wanted Drake to kill Blade because
Blade was the only thing that could have stopped their vampire's final solution, their human
farms. Really, she was just trying to use Drake, but the idea of Dracula, Lord of the Vampires,
being used by some dumbass just doesn't sit well with me. It really, really made me miss
like the vampire councils that we saw in the early Blade films. This was just such a far
cry from then. So depressing by comparison. Yeah, it was like David Goyer was trying to
make a Christopher Guest movie considering he also cast, you know, John Michael Higgins as
Dr. Vance. That's right. It's so weird. You know, if there was ever a Venn diagram that
should never have existed, it's Christopher Guest comedies intersecting with the Blade
franchise in Blade Trinity. I hate that that's a thing. I didn't think about that. That's
great.
Let's go ahead and move into the story highlights. Danica Talos and her group of vampires enter
an ancient tomb in the Sumerian desert where they find the original vampire, Dracula, as
part of their final solution against humanity. To prevent Blade from interfering in their
plans, the House of Talos film him murdering one of their human familiars, leading to a
manhunt from the FBI and the local chief of police. I want to know how Dracula actually
factored into their plans considering that they had this idea to frame Blade, get him arrested,
and then likely kill him while incarcerated, right? Drake doesn't have to be any part of
that, so why did they go dig him up to begin with? Yes, they wanted him to kill Blade, but
they also had this other plan that was just as, if not more so, effective. Yeah, I was
wondering if maybe they just dug Dracula up because they could? Because they- discovered
his location or found where they thought he might be and just wanted to see what it would
be like to resurrect him. But yeah, that seems kind of risky when you have this huge plan
and the potential for the original vampire to resurrect and upturn things. Yes, essentially
since the first action that Dracula does coming out of the ground is fucking bite another vampire's
head clean off, you know. Exactly. At that point, I would have been like, maybe this isn't a
great idea to have. Drake as our backup plan against Blade. Every time you call him Drake,
I die a little. Also mentioning their whole plan to frame Blade and capture him. Why the
fuck didn't they just kill him when they had him at the police station? Considering they
own the police. I kind of have an issue with this whole plan in general because largely
Blade kind of existed in his own world apart from the rest of humanity in the first two
Blade films. So it's really strange to have like normal humans and like the FBI and the
local police all of a sudden be a factor in this. When they were largely absent in previous
installments, like in the first Blade movie, Blade even point blank tried to shoot Deacon
Frost in broad daylight at the park. And Deacon Frost dodged the bullets. We didn't ever know
what happened to the bullets or if the police were called or anything like that. But it made
sense for that world because things felt so surreal stylistically, you know, that's not
the case for this film. Well, I just imagine that the police largely avoided Blade because
they were owned by the vampires. That makes sense. You know, it was weird seeing them talk
about Blade like on the news. Yeah, it's like if they were talking about Batman on the news,
like trying to dissect them psychologically and stuff, you know, you don't see that done
in these movies because it's a stupid ass idea. You know, these characters should be so mysterious
to the general public and they shouldn't be debated on public access television. Well,
I mean, they did that with Superman in Batman v Superman, and I thought that was interesting.
But definitely not with Blade, definitely not with a character that's supposed to be hunting
the secretive class in society. Right. You know, Superman is fair game for public debate because
he's not hiding in the shadows like Blade is. Or vampires. Right. Meanwhile, Abigail Whistler
hunts a group of teenage vampires who are so lame, I'm 100% convinced that Deacon Frost
and Damascenos would have actually paid to have them killed. Yeah, it was a horrible setup
for Abigail, I thought. It's like, oh, she could beat the shit out of these punk asses. Who
can't look at them? Back to the movie, the authorities track Blade and Whistler to their secret base
and infiltrate it killing Whistler and apprehending Blade. He's taken to the local police station
where the vampire hunting team called the Night Stalkers break him out. This movie really made
me miss Chris Christopherson as Whistler for sure. I know David Esquire tried to kill the
character off in the first Blade movie, but he was just so damn good he had to keep coming
back for each one. This movie they finally got rid of him and the film really suffered after
his death. Yeah, and lo and behold, it's the worst Blade movie, so what does that tell you?
I think he just gives such a good performance as the character. Like, you can't help but
love the guy. Yeah, he definitely gave something to the franchise that the Nightstalkers could
not replace. 100%. Taking you back to their headquarters, the Nightstalkers fill Blade
in on their intel regarding Drake and how they will need to join forces to stop him and the
vampire Final Solution. Meanwhile, Dracula walks around town and then kills some hot topic workers.
Uh, why was that scene in this movie? I don't know. Damn it. We've got Dracula vibrators.
Okay. I mean, they're, you know, trying to show how low vampires had come and that they had
become a pop culture gag since Dracula's time, but it was such a stupid scene. Back to the
movie, Blade, Hannibal King, and Abigail interrogate familiars around town. Meanwhile, Abigail listens
to her iPod. The whole music thing, I thought was weird. It was just like a hamfisted kind
of way to insert music into the movie for the soundtrack, I feel like. Yeah. Either that
or like Apple paid them to be in the movie. Apple did not pay them. The most they did was
offer the crew a 60% discount off of the purchases that they made for the film. Wait, is that
real? Yeah. Jeez. Why even put it in then? I don't know. It would have been so easy to cut
out, you know? Oh she's so hip she listens to music as she hunts. Whoa. Back to the movie,
Blade and the Nightstalkers play a visit to Dr. Edgar Vance, a notable psychiatrist. They
find Drake there and Blade chases him through the city, though Drake escapes. Meanwhile,
Abigail gets naked and takes a shower to wash away the blood. We don't see anyone else showering
the blood away, but you know, it's Jessica Biel. There you go. Back to the movie, the Night
Stalkers discover one of Donna Katalos' business fronts, Biomedica Enterprises. Investigating,
Blade and Abigail learn the vampire's final solution is their blood farms where humans
are medically sedated and their blood regularly harvested. Which again, not a terrible idea.
In fact, they made a whole movie about it with Daybreakers as like Ethan Hawke and Willem
Defoe. That was a great movie. Oh really? I hadn't seen it. But I definitely think the
blood farm had much more potential to be explored in this For sure. While Blade and Abigail were
gone, Drake shows up at the Nightstalker's base. I don't know how he learned where the base
was, but he kills most of the Nightstalkers, abducting Hannibal King and a small girl named
Zoe. King is taken to the House of Talos, where Danica and her goons interrogate him about
Blade and the Nightstalker's plans to create a vampire chemical weapon called Daystar. Well
that's true, how did they find the Nightstalker's base? No one knows to this day. All of a sudden
the camera pans up and we see Whistlers there, who is Drake in disguise. We don't know anything
more about how he got there or how the nice Ockers got discovered. They should have established
that maybe Drake has like superhuman senses and like a keen sense of smell like a wolf
or something and that's how he was able to track them down. Wouldn't that be great? That's a
great idea. That is now my head cannon. That's what happened. Armed with a Daystar weapon,
Blade and Abigail infiltrate the house of Talos. rescuing King and kicking ass. Blade sword
fights Drake, during which Abigail fires the Daystar weapon from her bow. Her shot misses,
but Blade grabs the arrow and lodges it in Drake's heart, triggering a chemical reaction that
goes airborne and kills all the vampires in the facility. The fight scenes I thought were
pretty good when it came to Blade going up against all the vampires in the House of Talos. I did
not like Abigail's hand-to-hand fights against the vampires again because I don't think normal
people should be able to go hand-to-hand with vampires. I also didn't care for Hannibal King's
fights in this, especially the one with Triple H. I didn't care for a Triple H at all in this
entire movie, like just cut him from the film completely. Why is that? He's just a really
shitty actor. I thought he was okay. I thought the metal fangs were stupid. The way he went
out was pretty dumb, you know, biting into one of the sundog bullets. I thought that was kind
of lame. I actually didn't mind the fight between him and Hannibal King. But you know, also if
they cut it out of the film, I wouldn't have cared. I do have to ask, what's worse, a Hulk
poodle or a vampire Pomeranian? That's a great question. Uh, you know, I actually like the
vampire Pomeranian as a visual gag in this movie more than I liked a French poodle with Hulk
strength. So gotta go with the Pomeranian on this one. Sorry, the correct answer was neither.
Neither of them work. I really thought it was stupid in the final fight when Drake catches
the Daystar arrow only to drop it on the ground right next to his enemy who could easily pick
it up and stab him with it. Like if you're going to catch the arrow, you know, toss it aside.
Don't drop it into the hands of your foe, you know? Well, I think he just didn't know what
it was. Who cares? Nothing that's any excuse. Yeah. Most convenient shit ever. Well, I think
really it was just so that Abigail wasn't the one who delivered the killing blow, but Blade
was. Yeah, but like the setup was horrible. Yeah, for sure. Dying, Drake commends Blade
and tells him that he is the future of the vampire race. As a parting gift, he shapeshifts into
Blade's body, letting authorities believe they've apprehended him. However, Blade is still out
there, continuing his war against vampires. And thank God it's over. I thought it was a
strange gift from Drake considering that his body reverted while on the autopsy table. So
if the goal was to convince authorities that they had in fact apprehended the guy they've
been after this whole time, it was short-lived. It was only enough time to allow Blade to escape,
but Blade had already escaped by the time that the authorities arrived. He was dragged out
of there, I think, by Abigail and Hannibal King.
I think by the end they just assumed that Blade this entire time was just some white guy disguised
as a black man. Oh my god. I hope that's not the case. I hope that's not what they thought
because that would be problematic. We'll say that. But that's the end of the film. It's
not a great movie. The story is not there. The action is there. But again, no stakes because
essentially you could trip over a vampire and kill it. I remember walking out of the theater
for the first time seeing this movie in 2004, just being really disappointed. It was the
most disappointed I think I had been since the 1998 Blade movie. Because that film and everything
after that was pretty good. You know, we got X-Men, we got the Spider-Man films. I guess
the 2004 Punisher movie wasn't that great. But I think I felt more disappointed by Blade Trinity
considering the films that had come prior. Oh, yeah, absolutely. To ultimately see this franchise.
go down with such a sour note was depressing. Depressing is a better word than disappointing,
for sure. Yeah, that's definitely how I felt at the time. Overall, between the low stakes
action, the non-existent character development, the campy villains, and the sidelined main
character make the film feel like it's trying to ice skate uphill. I give the film two and
a half stars out of five, a rotten score on Rotten Tomatoes. Yeah, I would agree with that.
A lot of people think... 2.5 is an average rating, but you know, per a grading scale, it's an
F, it's a 50%, it's pretty bad. I can even see a case made for two stars, although I definitely
didn't think it was two stars watching it. Same, yeah. Despite how much negative things you
can say about the film in a review, I will admit that watching it is a somewhat lighter experience.
Not that we would recommend doing so. Stick with the first two Blade films. But that does
it for this review, let us know what you guys thought about the movie by writing to us at
dynamicduelpodcast.gmail.com or by visiting us on Instagram or X. You can find links to
all of our accounts by checking out our show notes or visiting our website at dynamicduel.com.
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you can still support the show by signing up for our e-newsletter, also at dynamicduel.com,
so you'll never miss an episode. You can also rate the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Podchaser,
or on our website. In our next episode, in keeping with Spooktober, we are doing a duel between
the interdimensional of Trigon and Dormammu. Yeah, and that demon duel is going to lead
into a review of a demon film, Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengeance, in which we'll have our good
friend of the show and executive producer John Storosky. Yeah, I haven't seen that film yet,
but I'm definitely looking forward to the remaining episodes in October, including the super secret,
super awesome one that we're dropping on Halloween Day. But that does it for this episode. We
want to give a big thanks to our executive producers. Ken Johnson, John Sturowski, Zachary Hepburn,
Dustin Belcombe, Miggy Matangian, Brendan Estergard, Nathaniel Wagner, Levi Yeaton, Nick Abonto,
Austin Wazilowski, AJ Dunkerley, Scott Camacho, Adam Spies, and Andrew Schunk for helping make
this podcast possible. And we'll talk to you guys next week. Up up and away, true believers.
Some motherfuckers are always trying to ice skate uphill.