If this showing is any indication, the fourth film is due to be called Blade: Outta Gas.

Blade (Wesley Snipes) is still doing the vampire slaying thing when he’s tricked into killing one of their familiars (vampire minions) in full view of civilian video cameras. With “a deranged vigilante” now being targeted by the FBI, Blade’s war on vampires just got a lot more complicated. If that weren’t enough, the Vampire Nation has also unearthed one of the eldest among them to restore their kind to glory, plus a local band of wannabe hunters calling themselves The Nightstalkers are either there to help or just get in the way…

Oh, how the mighty half-vampire has fallen. From the surprise original film (made better with the inclusion of Stephen Dorff as vampire revolutionary Deacon Frost) to the larger sequel hit (with Hellboy alumni Guillermo del Toro directing and Ron Perlman co-starring), something stalled in the franchise just long enough to suck the lifeblood out of it. Whether it was too many subplots, too many duplicated kills, too much unnecessary silliness, or the fact that the stories just never came together, Blade: Trinity looks like a television pilot that would one day be remade into the feature film that actually spawned it.

Comic book scribe David S. Goyer has had his hands in almost a dozen film projects, but this time he does duty as director. Whether the studio meddled too much with the final cut or the rumored “Nightstalker” spin-off was to blame, the spotlight was taken off of Blade and pushed onto secondary characters that just weren’t as interesting. Jessica Biel kicks butt and Ryan Reynolds zings great one-liners, but there wasn’t enough character development of either them or the bad guy, Dominic Purcell, as Drake (aka Dracula and so forth). And what was with WWE’s Triple H? Those who’ve seen the unfinished and unused “Blood God” alternate ending from the original Blade will understand how lame it could have been, and yet Trinity managed to equally underwhelm.

Nothing really new, original, or necessary to watch. If this had been a Star Trek episode, it would have been the ‘stock plot’ where Kirk, Spock, and McCoy beam down to Planet Hell to drive the Computer God insane with illogic (hey, it works on Vulcans). The theatrical incarnation of Blade has earned and deserved better than this, and it’s sad to see him go out this way.

(a one and a half skull recommendation out of four)