Buy it... only if you enjoy the entire range of the Media Ventures library of rhythm, chord progression, and instrumentation.

Avoid it... if Hans Zimmer imitation scores of the mid-1990's present nothing unique or new for your listening enjoyment.

Powell

Face/Off: (John Powell) The third English-language feature from acclaimed Hong Kong director John Woo, Face/Off is an exhibition of the director's fiercely independent styles in showing violence. With fight sequences choreographed like a ballet, Face/Off is eye candy for those who enjoy the art of spraying bullets and is even more representative of Woo's overarching styles than his previous Broken Arrow effort. The problem with this Woo film in particular is that it requires you to think even less than you normally would for any of his films, suspending all belief in logic to buy into the essential plotline that a diligent cop and master criminal medically swap faces and assume the identity of the other. The film makes some laughable attempts at posing questions about the intellectual aspects of these face transplants, and how they affect the behavior of both men, but make no mistake about it: Face/Off is just another cheap thrill for fans of preposterous violence and totally unnecessary destruction of physical property. In the film music world, Face/Off would also represent a disturbing trend in film scoring that would soon be identified as Hans Zimmer's Media Ventures empire. Signs of Zimmer's slowly receding role in composing for the projects he was technically hired to score began to surface in 1996, with Woo's Broken Arrow. After assigning some of the work in that score to his pupils and friends, he would restrain himself to only the title theme for The Rock, and by Face/Off, he would have retreated to the role of consultant and producer for composers eager to emulate his style down to the last drum loop. While some of these composers, including John Powell in this case, would go on to strong solo careers, even these artists floundered when first released from the Zimmer school of action scoring. The most horrific evidence of this insufferable music came with Con Air, released just before Face/Off, and both scores try so hard to extend Zimmer's library of classical chord progressions and fake cellos that the result is predictably tiresome.

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Perhaps the ills of Face/Off, and the way in which Media Ventures spin-off composers try so hard to reinvent dramatic muscle, can be defined by the first cue. In "Face On," Powell uses the typical formula of grim beauty in the bass regions and shocks you with crashes of the synthetic that are meant to get your pulse moving in high fashion. He uses a piece of Handel's "Messiah" in its ethereal, choral beauty and interrupts it with shrieking vocal effects and wailing guitars, as well as the usual fake orchestra hits that Zimmer popularized over the previous few years. Instrumentally, Powell's choice for unique instrumentation in Face/Off is a tingling music box effect of synthetic percussion in the high metallic ranges, not unsimilar to the kind of sounds heard in Jerry Goldsmith's more synthetic scores. But the problem with Powell's plan here is that these light percussive elements, and the floating rhythms they create, are habitually busted by the seemingly endless array of drum pad explosions and overbearing bass beats that can rock your speakers without warning. Lack of fluidity --or any sense of elegance-- is a fatal flaw in Face/Off, with the need for extended sequences of action music leading to frenzies of guitars, electronic orchestra hits in typical Zimmer progressions, and stuttering rhythms that mark bullet hits well on screen, but only serve to irritate on album. The last cue finally maintains cohesion, with a rising violin theme serving some overdue redemption in category of melody, though even this cue continues the same broad electronic bass as the rest of the score. One of the more creative musical elements in the film is the use of Judy Garland singing "When You Wish Upon a Star" during a brutal attack sequence, and that insertion is more intriguing than anything Powell generates in his imitation score. Powell would go on to far better scores when he would shed his reliance on Zimmer's library of sounds and rhythms. **   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download

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For John Powell reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.05 (in 38 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.05 (in 42,939 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.