Two installments (one great, one poor) after Blade made slaughtering vampires cool again, the latest offering, Blade: Trinity from director David S. Goyer doesn't just threaten to drive a stake through the heart of this comic book character's film franchise, it maims every inch of progress the genre has gained. No pun intended, but you don't have to get too close to this one to realize that it stinks.

Trinity is a hack attempt to try to milk the last half droplet out of a dead story, but unfortunately, the resuscitation methods don't breathe life into the film. Instead, the film backs into one cliché pratfall after another, hoping that the pulse pounding techno music and heavily computer-generated action would somehow distract us enough to entertain.

Sadly, it's no longer 1998 and rapper Eninem's prescient lyrics are true—ain't no one listen to techno. The stench of creative decay becomes overwhelming when early on, the film relies on a textbook twists to try to drive the story along (i.e.) let's resurrect Dracula (or Drake if you're nasty) so he could battle Blade in the mutha-of-all battles! Then let's kill off his most trusted confidant, Whistler (Kris Kristofferson), to weaken the hero and then sully his good name by orchestrating a big public relations stunt. In a matter of minutes, Blade is so Ovitz.

Then we, the audience, are supposed to struggle internally with the possibility of Blade getting caught by police or turning to the dark side completely. With Whistler dead, who's going to administer those murder-suppressing shots to the half breed human and vampire? Who can Blade trust?

Fear not though, Whistler may be dead, but right on his heels is a group of clandestine computer geeks and rogue vampire hunters called the Nightstalkers, who can help Blade face off with Drake/Dracula (Dominic Purcell). They come equipped with a hottie named Abigail (Jessica Biel), wise guy Hannibal (Ryan Reynolds) and blind scientist Sommerfield (Natasha Lyonne). The opposition is also growing with vixen Danica Talos (Parker Posey) and gulp Grimwood (WWE's Triple H!). Then the story takes off by itself—and falls flat on its face.

Posey and Lyonne are terribly miscast and look miserable in their roles, especially Posey who can barely articulate a sentence with extra large vampire teeth stuffed in her mouth. How does a blind scientist mix her potions? This is another mystery of the world. And it seems that whenever a film calls for an impossibly curvy white girl who can scream and kick butt, Biel will be there. Here, she gets to fuel more male fantasies in a Little Red Riding Hood type get-up and play with arrows, but even her luminous presence and tight abs can't make the bad dialogue sound sexier.

Reynolds, AKA Mr. Alanis Morisette, inherits the smart ass title from Jason Lee and does get a spattering of laughs here and there, but how does one comedian save the entire show?

These are ideas that high school drama students would likely come up and it's embarrassing what kind of film can be made with a few special effects and some B+ headliners.