Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if you consistently enjoy the continuing variations of Media Ventures drum loops, rapid orchestra hits, and synthetic choirs. Avoid it... if style is more important that process in your film music. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
The Island: (Steve Jablonsky, Various) As the progression of director Michael Bay's films has declined in quality and enjoyability, so have the scores that accompany them. The problem with Bay is that his breathless action films are no longer snappy in their humor, nor enticing in their edits. The man has simply lost his touch. Sadly, this decline in filmmaking standards by Bay (though some would argue there wasn't much there to begin with) is a problem compounded in 2005's The Island by the fact that several masterful films about the subject have come before, including Logan's Run and THX 1138. The concept this time around is that future humanity has been restricted to bubbles in which there is little education and less individuality, and people are occasionally selected as winners of a lottery to go off to a gorgeous island where they are unsuspectingly harvested (reminds of that short story "The Lottery" where the winner in the small town is ritually stoned to death). A few clones decide to grow some individuality and rebel against the system, leading us on the more typical Michael Bay series of chase sequences that just happen to this time take place in the futuristic science fiction realm. These Bay films have always been tied to composer Hans Zimmer from the very start, and from The Rock to Pearl Harbor, Zimmer's participation has always involved the usual random collection of his Media Ventures artists. This time, as in a few previously, the clones have taken over and five of them produce the music for The Island. They are led by Steve Jablonsky, whose work in the sound design film score genre expanded to a strong orchestral presence in Steamboy that did significantly more to advance Jablonsky's name in the public eye. But given that we're back in the Bay-realm of simplistic testosterone, so too does Jablonsky revert to the stock Media Ventures library of tired ideas, hoping that a subtle change here and there will suffice for the musical presence in the film. Unfortunately, the amount of originality in that library was limited in the first place, so to hear it rearranged and regurgitated once again by Zimmer junkies isn't impressing or fooling anyone. Even the immediately opening motif of The Island is tired. A series of eigth notes used by Zimmer in a number of scores (including Batman Begins most recently) is translated onto guitar by Jablonsky. A meandering, harmonious series of chords for synthetic male choir attempts to bring epic scale into the coastal aerial shots. Familiar drum loops take over and offer nothing that we haven't heard previewed in Jablonsky's remix of Tears of the Sun or half a dozen ideas from other Zimmer clones. Chopping synths behind a small ensemble of strings and brass provide the usual rapid orchestral hits on each note. The entire score is a series of these repetitious drum loops and ensemble hits interspersed with the obligatory faux-important synth choir statements of a few basic, harmonious chord progressions. By the end, you're even treated to a reinterpretation of "Now We Are Free" from Gladiator, and it leaves you wondering what exactly these artists are attempting to accomplish. For Hans Zimmer himself, whose name is once again on the product as the producer, it's becoming strikingly clear that "process" has now surpassed "style" as the primary consideration in his ventures. He has become the ultimate music coordinator, and has programmed his associates to build their scores based on ideas he conjured ten years ago... and at some point, each of these imitation scores, never advancing any kind of musical identity of their own, must be treated with a summary one-star treatment. You'll get some debate on this in the circle of film music critics. On one side, you have the group who believes that this music serves its functional purpose and is therefore at least a three-star effort. On the other side are the film music purists who acknowledge personal accomplishments in film scoring and expect their scores to exhibit more unique style than the Media Ventures clones are trained to provide. The album for The Island isn't terrible, although the hip-hop vocals in "Mass Vehicular Carnage" (despite the irony of its uniqueness) and the song at the end are definite detractions. The whole endeavor just seems like pointless repetition and variation, and the fault is just much Zimmer's as it is Jablonsky's. A $120 million overall production budget bought this music? The page must be turned. * Track Listings:
Total Time: 56:06
All artwork and sound clips from The Island are Copyright © 2005, Milan 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 12/10/05, updated 12/11/05. Review Version 4.1 - PHP (Filmtracks Publications). Copyright © 2005-2013, Christian Clemmensen. All rights reserved. |
