 Critics seem to agree that the new Blade movie, which opens today, is not exactly cutting edge. Stephen Holden in the New York Times writes that Blade: Trinity "is a choppy, forgetful, suspense-free romp that substitutes campy humor for chills." Stephen Hunter in the Washington Post observes that watching the movie "is like being rolled down a marble staircase in an oil drum. The movie is loud, dark, bumpy and not even a little fun." Several reviewers fault star Wesley Snipes, who portrays the "hybrid" title character, who is half-human, half vampire. "Snipes doesn't act -- he never delivers more than one simple sentence at a time -- as much as pose and swagger," writes V.A. Musetto in the New York Post. "Snipes punches the clock here, going through the wire-work somersault motions but delivering his hokey dialogue in a basso profundo drone," comments Ty Burr in the Boston Globe. Even critics who cheered the first two Blade movies are clearly disappointed in this one. Geoff Pevere, in the Toronto Star opens his review by remarking: "It's an irrefutable rule of franchise movie logic that, sooner or later, it's going to suck. ... The Blade series has most decidedly not sucked -- until now. ... Alas, with the third installment ... the suck principle is making up for lost time. It's almost bad enough to implicate its predecessors." And Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times, who also liked the first two Blade film, calls this one "a mess," explaining: "It lacks the sharp narrative line and crisp comic-book clarity of the earlier films, and descends too easily into shapeless fight scenes that are chopped into so many cuts that they lack all form or rhythm." |
