Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if you're satisfied with a competent translation of the style of the original show's memorable theme tune into a mixture of generic symphonic and orchestral mayhem suitable for a newer generation of safe blockbuster music. Avoid it... if you expect anything in this score to be as rousing and memorable as the one full performance of that old series theme, a sad reflection of the state of expectations in the industry that steered Alan Silvestri's equally pedestrian G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra a year prior. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
The A-Team: (Alan Silvestri) In yet another example of a popular television concept that has been hung up for decades in Hollywood studios because of countless re-writes of its adaptation, The A-Team finally concluded fifteen years of production delays with a 2010 release. The concept was a success for NBC when it ran for five seasons from 1983 to 1986, though the series' cartoonish violence eventually caused audience interest to wane by its final, ratings-stricken year. The most enduring aspects of the series were Mr. T and the 1983 GMC Vandura van that was by default another character. Perhaps it was a bad omen that neither was able to make a cameo in Joe Carnahan's adaptation of The A-Team, the latter a bizarre misstep. The basic story of the group of elite American commandos is essentially intact, though the setting of their original "crime they did not commit" is moved to the Iraq war. They once again bust out of prison and defy the odds in attempting to prove their innocence and fight for the cause of good while eluding the U.S. military. Response to the $110 million adaptation hasn't been particularly kind, with mediocre reviews joined by former cast members who either regretted their cameos in such a disappointing film or blasted it from afar. One aspect that curiously didn't carry over well to the film was the silly element of ridiculous action, a focal point (along with a poorly arranged narrative) of negative reviews of The A-Team. Seeing composer Alan Silvestri attached to the project was initial reason for optimism from film score collectors. His career has proven him just as capable of providing smart workmanlike action scores with interpolations of classic themes as the likes of John Debney, though the downside of such scores from the two veterans is a tendency to write music that is functional but anonymous. In the case of The A-Team, the question is whether Silvestri would return to his The Mummy Returns and Van Helsing form or would regurgitate the conservatively generic tone of G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, a score from 2009 that didn't meet the expectations of many of the composer's collectors. Unfortunately, The A-Team resides closer to the territory of G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra than anything else in his career (with the exception of, perhaps, Eraser), serving as an extension of the prior score's merging of techno-savvy personally and orchestral mayhem. It's hard to fault this music, but it leaves you with no lasting memory even after its extremely long album has concluded. Of primary concern to enthusiasts of the original show will likely be the employment of Mike Post and Pete Carpenter's catchy theme tune, which is indeed resurrected by Silvestri. Its adaptation into even a fuller orchestral environment is specifically credited in the opening and closing tracks on the album, including a brief performance of the famous opening drums and a snippet of the theme in "Somewhere in Mexico" and a full treatment in the latter half of "I Love It When a Plan Comes Together." What that official credit doesn't entail is the employment of the theme in fragments throughout the rest of score; in fact, there are influences of that original theme in the majority of action pieces in The A-Team, adapted by Silvestri into one of his two main themes for the group. The latter half of "The Plan" is a good example of the original theme's percussive stance and general brass progressions influencing a revised action theme. A bit more disheartening is Silvestri's secondary, melodramatic theme for the film, a weighty, harmonically pleasing expression of defiant melancholy from the end of "Court Martial" to the opening of "I Love It When a Plan Comes Together." This idea is unfortunately too close to the ridiculously simplistic Tranformers mentality to handle without forgiving it in the context of the juvenile demeanor of the film. As for the straight forward action material, Silvestri concentrates the most engaging music in the scenes immediately following the escape of the team and their congealing as a group of badasses on the run. The pair of "Putting the Team Back Together" and "Flying a Tank" owe a bit to John Powell and David Arnold in their employment of aggressive ostinatos and electronic loops, respectively. By the two cues for the final confrontation ("The Docks"), the score has dissolved into a series of simplistic action mechanisms and rowdy percussive outbursts accompanied by muscular horn lines at times. The balance between orchestra, electric guitar, and synthesizer has reached a point where the "coolness factor" of that combined sound no longer carries the weight that it once did in Silvestri's Eraser, and the disconnected motifs that roll along without further development in this score continue to rely upon the tone of the performance at a time when more structural cohesion is necessary to distinguish the overall work. Instead, you end up grasping at the snare rips and brass snippets of the original series theme, a futile task on album given that the product of 72 minutes is simply way too long of a presentation to sustain interest. Perhaps it's no surprise that the ultimate highlight of the album is its last two minutes. If only Silvestri's approach had been as enthusiastically memorable, then perhaps a plan for the score truly would have come together. *** Track Listings:
Total Time: 72:29
* contains the television series theme by Mike Post and Pete Carpenter All artwork and sound clips from The A-Team are Copyright © 2010, Varèse Sarabande. 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 6/28/10, updated 6/28/10. Review Version 4.1 - PHP (Filmtracks Publications). Copyright © 2010-2013, Christian Clemmensen. All rights reserved. |
