Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if you were awed by the simple, though magnificent orchestral and choral crescendos accompanying the striking vistas in the film's middle and final acts. Avoid it... if you're tired of hearing director Roland Emmerich's composers of the 2000's write scores with restrained emotional depth and negligible complexity, music that is more appropriate for television documentaries than massive, feature disaster productions. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
2012: (Harald Kloser/Thomas Wanker) Audiences go to disaster flicks to see chaos and disorder. They want to see landmarks destroyed, machines blow up, and thousand of people annihilated. To that end, spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a single feature film in the disaster genre seems like a good idea. When that money is put into lengthy exhibitions of devastation, the masses are generally satisfied. But when is director and producer Roland Emmerich going to realize that trying insert a wide range of character stories in the middle of these kinds of films only serves to bore? James Cameron's Titanic worked because it was centered upon only two people in the midst of a spectacular disaster. Emmerich films like Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow, and 2012 don't justify their running times because they attempt to morally justify the scenes of mass destruction and death by artificially inserting a large set of emotional character stories, often ridiculously including the American president. The fact that Emmerich has chosen the likes of Matthew Broderick and John Cusack to lead these films only makes them more excruciatingly insufferable. In the case of 2012, the plot not only allows Emmerich to revisit his environmental agenda while indulging in the graphic depiction of Los Angeles' improbable end, but it also gave him plenty of latitude in playing upon the fears of stupid people who think that the conclusion of the Mayan calendar in December of 2012 really does imply doomsday and judgment. The Chinese have loved the film; for once, they're the good-guys in an American blockbuster, and a cynical sort could claim that Emmerich made the conscious choice to define them as a key member of the world's salvation in the story to ensure $50 million or more in earnings from the box office of that nation. On the whole, however, 2012 is a tested formula presentation, likely to justify its $260 million budget (but hopefully not by much). Another tell-tale sign that the screenplay for your 160-minute project is inept is the fact that your composer for the film, a person with no formal writing credits outside of this collaboration, is both one of two co-writers and a producer for you. Emmerich decided to include Harald Kloser in more of his production elements after the composer impressed him with some story suggestions for The Day After Tomorrow, leading to writing and executive production work on both 10,000 BC and 2012. Sure, there was a writer's strike when this film was commencing production. But that likely had no impact on Kloser's involvement, an unfortunate circumstance given how limp the story and the score are. It makes one wonder if a person who stretches himself too thin in such a manner can't perform any of his roles on a film with any sense of direction or quality. Kloser's career has been littered with B-rate films and a plethora of television documentaries. His music is the kind of generic background noise, sometimes pleasant, in the ambience of bio-pics seen on cable television channels. It's truly unfortunate but perhaps not terribly surprising that the majority of his film scores have conveyed the same restraint in terms of depth and complexity in their recordings. Kloser's scores, both in and outside of the Emmerich collaboration, are average. Nothing more, nothing less. They are workmanlike, sufficient in their volume and accurate in their assessment of the basic emotional needs of every scene. If you've heard The Day After Tomorrow and 10,000 BC, then there will be nothing new in 2012. At least the man is consistent. It's constantly disappointing to hear a composer with all the right ingredients and a decent intuitive sense underwhelm when his ideas are performed. Everything in 2012 is process. None of it is art. The nuances of the musical language are absent from this music, despite its majesty and ruckus at times. Direct counterpoint is rare and secondary lines within the ensemble are basic. The electronic accents are bland. The employment of specialty instruments and vocals is commendable, but they make no difference if you decide to mix them so badly into the final version of the music that nobody can really hear them. The vocals and woodwinds in "Nampan Plateau," for instance, needed to be placed much closer to the forefront of the soundscape to have any impact. In a film that suggests that the peoples of the world need to work together to survive this unfathomable disaster, the lack of emphasis on the worldly instrumentation is inexcusable. The absence of truly compelling themes is deceptive in 2012, because Kloser actually does provide ideas representing wonderment, defiance, and love. These themes, however, are so poorly orchestrated and lackadaisically conveyed by the seemingly restrained Los Angeles performing group that they won't even register for many listeners. They do offer a blanket of harmony that is functionally pretty during human bonding moments and, more importantly, convey a fundamental sense of awe for the more fantastic vistas. Without strong enunciation, however, even at the climax, they fail to garner attention. As with 10,000 BC, Kloser collaborated with fellow Austrian composer Thomas Wanker for 2012 (though Wanker is going by "Wander" for this credit, which is odd, given the negative connotations of both names in English). The two have worked together on several assignments, usually television related, over the course of the 2000's, and nothing in 2012 indicates tell-tale signs of disparate styles at battle within the score. Unfortunately, Wanker's music is apparently not any more memorable in its structures than Kloser's. The only truly interesting parts of 2012 are those in which they either sell out completely in the fantasy element, such as the magnificent choral-enhanced crescendos of wonder in "Open the Gates!" and "2012 The End of the World," or those in which they work their hardest to imitate the sounds of other popular, contemporary composers. The most obvious of the references, not surprisingly, points to David Arnold, who so memorably scored Independence Day and Godzilla before the original Emmerich/Devlin/Arnold team split apart at the end of the 1990's. The second half of 2012 clearly attempts to stir up action tones familiar to Arnold's style (even extending to his more recent James Bond material). Once again, though, Kloser and Wanker fail to achieve the same robust spirit. Their composition contains too little depth in activity, too little creativity in orchestration, and too little enthusiasm in even the most melodramatic portions. This music on paper obviously didn't inspire the musicians the way Arnold's did for Emmerich. Also aped in a few places, intriguingly, is Howard Shore's Gollum-related material from The Lord of the Rings, especially evident in the creepy bass string movements of "Ashes in D.C." Listeners already familiar with The Day After Tomorrow will hear a reprise of significant chunks of that score's non-descript moments as well, though the increase in the magnificence factor in 2012, summarized by "The End is Only the Beginning," gives the latter score the upper hand in terms of its album presentation. Overall, this music is still dull given the genre's expectations and potential. It makes rather mediocre disaster scores from great composers (like Alan Silvestri's Volcano) seem like triumphs of character. At least it's superior Tyler Bates' take on the same idea. The two rock songs and inconveniently placed jazz piece in the middle of the album presentation for 2012 add nothing to the score but sudden shocks of transition. For containing no offensive cues and basically sufficing in its purpose, this score barely achieves a third star. *** Track Listings:
Total Time: 57:49
All artwork and sound clips from 2012 are Copyright © 2009, RCA Records. The reviews and notes contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Filmtracks Publications. Audio clips can be heard using RealPlayer but cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 11/20/09, updated 11/20/09. Review Version 4.1 - PHP (Filmtracks Publications). Copyright © 2009-2013, Christian Clemmensen. All rights reserved. Let's hope that hundreds of thousands of braindead people around the world (including depressed white-collar criminals) commit suicide in December 2012, just like the masses that jumped off cliffs in third world nations in December 1999. |
