Blade III

Stars
Wesley Snipes
Kris Kristofferson
Jessica Biel
Ryan Renolds

Runtime: 113 Minutes

Release Date: December 2004

63% Chicago Tribune Robert K. Elder (Highest Rating)
Thankfully, Reynolds (bearded, looking a bit like Jason Lee) adds some scrappiness and humor to a series that might otherwise have collapsed under self-parody.

20% Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov (Lowest Rating)
Of all the missteps made and absurdities offered, the most glaring is the casting of what appears to be a steroidal Eurotrash pimp as no less than Dracula.

Plot
The vampires succeed in framing Blade for the killing of a human (a familiar being used as bait when posing as a vampire). Blade, now in the public's eye and wanted by the FBI, is chased down to his hideout where his mentor, Abraham Whistler, triggers an explosion inside the building, sacrificing himself to protect their operation.

After being captured by the police, who are about to hand him over to the vampires, Blade is rescued by the Nightstalkers, a human clan of vampire hunters. They are led by Hannibal King (Ryan Reynolds), an ex-vampire, and Abigail Whistler (Jessica Biel), Abraham's daughter. They ask his help to go after Danica Talos (Parker Posey), a powerful vampire leader, who has succeeded in locating and resurrecting the ancient first vampire Dracula, or Drake (Dominic Purcell), as he is now commonly known. Talos hopes that she will finally be able to kill Blade.
In his first confrontation with Blade, Drake shows a sort of affinity for the "Day Walker", as they are both "honorable warriors" (somewhat ironically, while Drake is delivering his speech about honor, he is hiding behind a newborn baby he has taken hostage).

Blade realizes that normal combat won't be enough to take down Drake, and he learns of a bioweapon, Day Star, that the Night Stalkers had been working on, that will wipe out all vampires. The catch: They need a sample of Drake's blood, as his vampiric genes are "pure", to make the virus work. The second catch: The virus may also kill Blade due to the fact that he is half-vampire.

While Blade and Abigail are out hunting, Drake finds their base of operations, and, disguised as Whistler, kills the entire staff, and captures King, who had been injured in their last encounter. When Blade and Abigail return, they discover their comrades dead and King missing. Meanwhile, at Drake's skyscraper fortress, Talos has her henchmen torture King to get the information of what his group was working on.

In a desperate attempt to rescue the soon to be re-vamped King, Blade and Whistler storm Drake's skyscraper fortress, during which Blade confronts Drake. After a prolonged battle, Blade impales Drake with a Daystar arrow and draws Drake's blood releasing Daystar and wiping out all nearby vampire life, also killing Danica Talos. Drake then dies from the Day Star virus soon after it is released and Blade seemingly dies as well.