Buy it... if you were never satisfied with the favoring of harsh dissonance and metallic sound effects over the glimpses of redemptive harmony in The Matrix, a balance that is better resolved in both sequel scores.

Avoid it... if the inclusion of only twenty minutes of Don Davis' orchestral score does not justify your purchase of a 2-CD set despite its low retail pricing.

Davis

The Matrix Reloaded: (Don Davis/Ben Watkins/Rob Dougan) So outstanding was the story and its cinematic execution that The Matrix became an international super-phenomenon in 1999. Perhaps due to the belated arrival of the first, mandatory sequel, Warner Brothers released two of them, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions within the span of two seasons in 2003. This tactic worked against them to a degree, reducing box office potential and splitting votes in technical categories during the awards season that followed. The still massive popularity of the films is rooted in the highly intriguing, but remarkably simple idea that everything we are experiencing in real life is actually an elaborate virtual reality. While we eat our hot dogs and watch our reality shows on TV (in our mind, that is), our real bodies are being harvested in a horrific, actual reality of machine dominance over the Earth. Combine that premise with wildly innovative slow-motion special effects and you end up with a series based on The Matrix that will probably continue to reside brightly as a cinematic cult favorite from Hollywood for decades. Likely because the original film was not predicted to be the smashing success that it was, the studio did not forcefully interrupt the collaboration between the writing and directing Wachowski brothers and composer Don Davis by flexing its muscle in favor of a mainstream composing name. Instead, the brothers enlisted very talented, but lesser known Davis for the postmodern scoring project, one that he has often reflected upon as the "dream assignment." His dissonant, highly challenging orchestral score, littered with harsh electronic sound effects, was functional for the film, though fans and critics alike were somewhat disappointed that the sound presented in the original film's trailers (namely, that of the new age group Enigma) was not the genre of music utilized to any degree in the film.

Davis' score was short on elegance and long on ambient disillusionment, using various sets of propulsive rhythms at both minimalistic and frightfully incongruous, full ensemble volumes to define the bleak vision of the future and the heroes' desperate maneuvers to counter it. Despite a lack of easy and obvious structural cohesiveness in its motifs, Davis' work for The Matrix was still an effective element in a film that distracted viewers more with its visuals than with its sounds. The most effective aspect of the score is arguably the motif of rotating trumpets and horns between two slightly disjointed notes an octave apart, a sound that would continue as the defining motif of the series. An accellerating motif for the machines, often slapped on metallic percussion, was also memorable. Provided in hints during The Matrix were both the hero motif (for Neo's transformation at the end of that story) and, more importantly, the love theme for Neo and Trinity that only received two or three complete performances in that score. There was a separate set of challenges awaiting Davis when it came time to tackle the two sequel scores, and foremost was the continuing use of non-score music as the centerpiece of the soundtracks. It didn't take a genius to see that the combination of the Wachowskis' song placements and Warner Brothers' perception of fan response to the original film and soundtracks put Davis' work at a disadvantage. The songs and other non-Davis placements continue to be embellished in The Matrix Reloaded, especially with the return of Rob Dougan's "Clubbed to Death," which had been inserted with great success into the "woman in the red dress" training scene in The Matrix. Additionally, with the Wachowski brothers' interest for electronica and techno music came the desire for a larger influence of that kind of music on Davis' own score. Thus, the final result is a score for The Matrix Reloaded that is a collaborative effort.

Despite the flashy tones of the nontraditional score contributions by others, Davis' music is largely unhindered by electronica elements for much of its duration, with several key cues featuring fully dynamic, orchestral (and sometimes choral) performances. The film opens with the same alternating brass motif as the previous entry, a fantastic method of accentuating the mind-numbing visual of seeing and imagining the green numbers that stream down the screen, representing our virtual lives. Davis ensures that this, the scores' most easily recognizable motif, continues to represent the overarching story in both sequel scores. Continuing to restate both the wavering brass motif and the accelerating machine motif throughout its length (and the latter most prominently at the end of "Trinity Dream"), the score for The Matrix Reloaded builds through several coherent and enjoyable cues into an effort that far exceeds Davis' previous entry in terms of balancing those ideas with the harmony of Neo and Trinity's two related themes. His music is allowed to flourish without as many awkward synthetic sound effects, with more clearly delineated instrumentation, a dramatic use of choral accompaniment, and, surprisingly, a decent amount of harmony contributing to a more satisfying whole. This time, as special effects slow the frames during spectacular scenes, Davis responds with grand orchestral and choral gestures of whole notes of power and substance. Gone is the brazenly dissonant approach that truly dominated the previous score, and Davis really does traverse closer to the Enigma style of elegance and thoughtful underscore that many had hoped to hear in The Matrix (and that sound, of course, is expanded upon even further in The Matrix Revolutions). Davis does incorporate electronic aids in his solo compositions, but they play a seemingly minor role compared to The Matrix. So impressive are parts of his choral incorporation that casual listeners will be reminded of Alan Silvestri's The Abyss, a score renown for its finale of massive harmonic and choral simplicity.

The conclusion of The Matrix Reloaded provides most of Davis' highly attractive material, and while some of it touches upon the brazenly heroic theme for Neo that stamped the end of The Matrix with grandeur, most of the pleasing and redeeming tones at the end of the sequel are extensions of the love theme for Neo and Trinity. While this theme begins to espouse the sense of romantic tragedy that will envelope it in the subsequent score, it is still a remarkably refreshing glimpse of hope in an otherwise troubling musical landscape. The solo horn performance of this theme near the end of the commercial album is striking despite its low volume. In short, Davis' intelligent mix of harrowing dissonance and awe-inspiring ensemble harmony for the sequel is what many had wished he would produce for the original, though given that the first film had a much stronger sense of horror to it, you have to forgive the necessary process of evolution through the three scores. But the story of The Matrix Reloaded isn't finished there. The Wachowski brothers hired the electronica group Juno Reactor to score the famed freeway chase scene and a handful of other sequences. Existing in the psychedelic trance and techno scene for a few decades, Juno Reactor's core member, Ben Watkins, had recently shifted the group's efforts away from the repetitive trance genre towards the use of additional live musicians and an orchestral accompaniment. Watkins had contributed popular cues to multiple Mortal Kombat films, and the tone of his music (as the leader of Juno Reactor) represented the desired combination of hard electronica and orchestral depth that the Wachowski brothers sought. It still seems odd that the brothers didn't ask Davis to provide these sounds for the film, for he was certainly capable of doing so, but they were so impressed with Watkins' "Mona Lisa Overdrive" cue that they requested him to also provide that hard-nosed edge to the "Burly Brawl" cue.

Compared to Don Davis' contributions, the Watkins/Juno Reactor cues are heavy and electronically persistent, and obviously a switch of genre (though the lack of musical continuity from scene to scene didn't seem to bother the Wachowskis in any of the films). In general, these recordings offer more of the action-packed thrill and less of the awe-inspiring beauty in the equation. In an interesting twist of competence, Davis was allowed to work with Watkins on both of these cues, assisting in the large-scale orchestration effort behind the electronic pulsations. Both of Watkins' cues feature a steady orchestra as a powerful assistant, and the latter cue, "Burly Brawl," is a perfect blend of the two styles, with Davis' alternating brass motif omnipresent. In addition to Watkins and Juno Reactor, the Wachowski brothers also wished to expand upon the use of "Clubbed to Death" by Rob Dougan in the first film. Thus, they went straight to the source. Dougan was also an artist combining electronica with orchestral sounds at the time, and his heavily orchestrated pop music was often compared to soundtrack scores even before this assignment. For the "Chateau" cue, Dougan introduces his rising "Clubbed to Death" theme and expands it into a full-fledged action motif with exciting orchestral accompaniment. Dougan fans should note that he does not use his deep, rich voice in any of the recordings for the score, however. While Davis was not a part of the development of the orchestral elements in "Chateau," Dougan's contribution is another well-placed piece in the larger musical tapestry of The Matrix Reloaded. It's an appropriate connection between the training exercise in The Matrix and the execution of Neo's experience in this film. When pulling back and placing the soundtrack's different artists in unison, the regular orchestral film music fan will note that there are a small handful of moments when Watkins' music doesn't completely mesh with Davis' score. Davis may have been able to provide the electronica elements for the chase and fight scenes himself, but the outsourcing to achieve the proper talent was still handled well enough to result in a coherent soundtrack.

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The standout track on the commercial album is obviously the suite edit of several Davis cues at the end of the 2nd CD in the product, a collection of the score's best material that simply blows away the material provided by Dougan and Watkins with its magnificent scope. For The Matrix, song and score albums were release separately; both were flawed, with the song album not including some key, popular uses in the film and the Davis score album short in length. For The Matrix Reloaded, Warner Brothers intriguingly offered both in one package. Some of the songs on the first album are indeed in the film, and they fall towards the hard rock and electronica side of the musical spectrum. The score cues by Davis, Watkins, and Dougan occupy the second CD, which is only 40 minutes in length to accommodate the enhanced-CD extras that reside on that CD. For film music fans, the first CD is a waste, with Dougan's "Furious Angels" the only track tolerable to classically-inclined ears (and, honestly, it should have appeared with Dougan's other cue on the second CD). Marilyn Manson's insufferable "This is the New Shit" is obviously not what most Davis fans are looking for. Regularly, the forcing of score fans to purchase both the score and song CDs together is a major detriment, but Warner Sunset and Maverick managed to figure that they could turn a profit while offering the 2-CD set for the price of a single album. Some American retail stores initially sold the set for only $11.99, and this excuses the bundling of the songs with the score. Given the popularity of the series, it wouldn't be surprising to see an expanded set with all three scores at some point in the future (despite the solo "deluxe" treatment of The Matrix on album in 2008). In the meantime, even with bootlegs long in circulation, score fans shouldn't be wary of this song-score CD combo, because you'll be getting more than enough good Davis material alone to justify the purchase. Overall, the score for The Matrix Reloaded is less frightening, dissonant, and disjointed than its predecessor. It hits most of its major beats in stride, and its weaker portions can be forgiven because of their brevity. It may not be as attractive as the conclusive statements in The Matrix Revolutions, but it's easily a better listening experience than The Matrix. ****   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download

Bias Check:

For Don Davis reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.2 (in 10 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.02 (in 43,269 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.