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Grade: C

Verdict: Mindless and tolerable installment in the comic-book vampire-killing series with lots of action and little substance.

By BOB LONGINO
Cox News Service

Like some spoiled child, "Blade: Trinity" just can't sit still.

In this souped-up, tolerable action picture's first few minutes, we get men running while on fire; bodies blasting apart; a big, blood-sucking monster rising from eons of slumber; a beheading and a long, violent chase with car wrecks and smashed windshields. Oh, yeah, and a big warehouse is blown to smithereens, the fiery explosions rising ever-higher in slo-mo.

Well, merry hellacious Christmas to you, too.

The third in a series of race-with-the-devil vampire movies based on the Marvel comic and starring Wesley Snipes, "Blade: Trinity" has no idea what season it is.

This "Blade" skips all tidings of great joy and goes straight for karate chops, one-liners, bloodletting and vamping villains.

It's silly, violent fun, sometimes mindlessly entertaining but hardly, if ever, engaging. Let's just say you could wrap presents while watching it and never miss a beat.

Snipes returns as the title character, a half-vampire, half-human who hunts evil bloodsuckers. His Blade has never been very talkative, but in this sequel he seems bored. He doesn't speak much and growls only every now and then. To say he's phoning it in is to give him credit for dialing.

Luckily, the movie's got a couple of stars still trying to eke out a big-screen career: Jessica Biel and Ryan Reynolds.

They play apparently well-financed humans who seem to be among the few aware that the world is overrun with vampires.

Biel is adept with a bow and arrow, and Reynolds, when he's not shooting bullets, flings passable one-liners.

Both have buffed up for the film, especially Reynolds, who reportedly packed on 25 pounds of muscle for his role. After he's captured by the vampires, there's a scene where he's chained to a floor and stripped shirtless, the better to ab-smack movie audiences.

Biel's physicality is more alluring. She doesn't show off as much as she takes care of business -- whacking vampires when needed while carrying the film on her beautiful and formidable back.

Should there be a fourth "Blade" film?

Well, is there a Santa Claus?