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The Matrix Revolutions: (Don Davis) One of the most
storied series of fantasy films came to an abrupt end in 2003, with both
The Matrix Reloaded and
The Matrix Revolutions dazzling
audiences in the same year. The establishment of humanity's battle
against the machines that rule the future Earth in the prior two films
reaches its predetermined destiny in
The Matrix Revolutions, with
the romantic tragedy of love and civilization lost countered by a
fulfillment of fate that doesn't necessarily end this epic battle, but
at least earns humanity a reprieve. Once again on display are concepts
and techniques in visual effects that offended conservative groups while
thrilling franchise faithful, and unfortunately Warner Brothers' choice
of releasing both films in the same year diminished either sequels'
chances of earning a wide range of technical awards. While the music for
the three films in the franchise was never as well conceived in detail
and arrangement as Howard Shore's concurrent
The Lord of the
Rings scores, composer Don Davis did consider the three films to be
an ongoing symphony of several developing movements. Continuing his
collaboration with directors Andy and Larry Wachowski, Davis'
involvement with
The Matrix Revolutions brought about a momentous
and epic conclusion to the trilogy. "It made perfect sense to me to
infuse some kind of individual personalities to
Reloaded and
Revolutions," Davis later stated. "It wasn't a matter of
improving on what I did in
The Matrix, it was a matter of
developing the ideas that we're established in the first movie. Even
though it's not what you can call a fanatic score, there is a fanatic
continuity." The music for
The Matrix was an edgy, disturbed
combination of razor sharp orchestral suspense and atmospheric,
electronic ambiguity. Its effectiveness was measured by its ability to
lure the audience into an uncertain world of distorted reality, and thus
was equally disturbing as a listening experience on album.
The music for
The Matrix Reloaded was arguably
intended to be the most stylish of the three scores, adding considerable
influence from Juno Reactor and Rob Dougan to Davis' equation. At the
same time, the second installment began to introduce a sense of
orchestral harmony for the resolution in the third film score, including
several majestic choral cues for its higher impact scenes. For
The
Matrix Revolutions, the script demanded an even more powerful
orchestral presence for the anticipated movement towards a fantastic,
lengthy battle sequence at the end of the story. With the war against
the machines rising to the surface of the charred Earth and culminating
in Neo's final, spectacular battle with the them, Davis' orchestra and
chorus is busy matching the dissonant echoes of the past with the
finale's need for monumental order and tonality. Davis recorded the
110-minute long score in August 2003 with a 99-piece orchestra and
80-member choir at the Newman Scoring Stage at 20th Century Fox in Los
Angeles, stirring up great anticipation among franchise fans for his
final act. The score's greater length was required due to the extensive,
epic fight sequences littered throughout the film (utilizing score
instead of songs or non-Davis instrumental material), and thus, only one
source song is employed in the picture. This is in contrast to the
previous two films, which featured a heavy dose of 1990's electronica in
the pictures and their albums. Seemingly fewer collaborations with
electronica artists existed with Davis in
The Matrix Revolutions,
with Juno Reactor's Ben Watkins only contributing to a few cues for the
project. The collaboration of Davis, Watkins, and Dougan for the
previous 2003 installment was certainly a success on album, the 2-CD set
selling over 500,000 units and achieving Gold status. Davis himself
praised the approach of combining the score and songs onto one album,
stating, "As a consumer, I always feel a little bit slighted if I get a
soundtrack CD that's mostly songs or only score music. This soundtrack
is a real effort to change the paradigm of what's being offered to
consumers in film music." Undoubtedly, the move was a very profitable
one for Davis and increased exposure for his work as well.
With the shades of Dougan's "Clubbed to Death" now gone
from the series, Watkins' remaining contributions to
The Matrix
Revolutions are restrained to collaborations with Davis, and moreso
than before, Davis' influence leads Watkins' rather than the other way
around. Both collaborative cues, "The Trainman Cometh" and "Tetsujin,"
offer Davis' score with minimal integration of synthetic
instrumentation. The notable use of the Seraph Kodo drums in the latter
cue finally yields to straight, rocking electronica rhythms in its last
moments. It should be noted that the collaboration between Davis and
Juno Reactor seems better balanced here, with nothing as far reaching as
"Burly Brawl" from
The Matrix Reloaded breaking Davis'
established tones and pace of development. The one clearly out of place
and unfortunate cut in the project is "In My Head," Pale 3's much
heavier electronica contribution outside of Davis' influence. With less
song material to be heard in
The Matrix Revolutions, Davis' score
is finally the central source of attention. Interestingly, the composer
considered this third score to be a natural end of the road from a
procedural standpoint early in the process, saying, "On the first
Matrix they wanted me to be as creative as I could be, doing
something absolutely new, different, big and huge and all this kind of
stuff. Then
Reloaded came along and it has to be newer, more
different, bigger. I would think that by the time
Revolutions is
over I'll have pretty much reached the boundary of what I could do with
this." That boundary exists on the highest level of harmonic, tonal
development while still inserting just enough uneasy dissonance as to
remind the viewer of the troubling concept at the root of the trilogy's
story. For the majority of
The Matrix Revolutions, Davis provides
lush, romantically inclined orchestral and choral statements with just a
tinge of rambling, atonal accompaniment. Even in the score's highlight
battle cue, "Neodammerung," Davis brilliantly uses harmonic chants and
large statements of the film's three dominant themes led by a
consistently rotating, off-key section of the orchestra in the
background (performing a grandiose version of the accelerating machine
theme).
Davis refers often to the technique of the alternating
chords of the series' primary motif to accomplish a background effect of
continuity. The dual-chord motif wavering between trumpets and horns, a
deceptively simple but memorable musical identity for the trilogy, is
introduced (in customary fashion) in the first cue of the score and
proceeds to add its flexible sense of warped reality to several cues
throughout the score. Interestingly, this theme becomes less apparent as
the score becomes more pleasant, only hinting softly at its own ghost on
woodwinds in the middle of "Spirit of the Universe." The crashing theme
for the machines, striking the same note in an increasingly rapid
pattern, is applied mostly to the sentinels in
The Matrix
Revolutions, culminating in "Niobe's Run" and offering a
considerable amount of ruckus for chase cues that herald back to the
truly disturbing moments of the original trilogy score. The continuously
growing love theme for Neo and Trinity is freed from the awkward bonds
that it experienced in
The Matrix Reloaded, providing the first
true sense of compassion (in a totally harmonic, undivided performance)
in the trilogy. This love theme balances the non-stop action from this
(and the previous) score with fantastic performances on cello, horn, and
clarinet in "The Road to Sourceville" and "Trinity Definitely." The hero
theme for Neo himself doesn't alone experience the same rush of
enthusiasm in its complete form in this score, instead merging with the
love theme to better represent the character's fate. Other overarching
stylistic choices that Davis made early in the trilogy receive
appropriately dying representations in
The Matrix Revolutions.
The swirling and sometimes frenetic rhythmic movements representing the
actions of Morpheus' crew throughout the first score and, to a lesser
degree, in the second have been slowed to a crawl by the end of this
one. The broad, rumbling percussion motif that accompanies the title
theme at the outset of each film is slowly disassembled in the late
minutes of "Spirit of the Universe." This deconstruction is a
continuation of Davis' smart structural decisions in the music of this
franchise, and they will certainly be a highlight of
The Matrix
Revolutions for its collectors.
Despite the impressive attributes of the main themes'
maturity throughout the work, the action cue "Neodammerung" and finale
counterpart "Spirit of the Universe" are still the centerpieces of this
score. The choral chants of the former are translated into Sanskrit
(with
Star Wars-style lyrics appropriately matching the mythic
proportion of the battle and the concept of 'The One'). The fighting
elements of harmony and atonality are overlayed in this cue, and when
considering that the "bigger is better" philosophy was applied as well,
the sheer energy of this action piece serves as an appropriate
conclusion to the Neo versus Agent Smith storyline. As Davis had stated,
there's really nowhere musically to go from here. Despite the impressive
attributes of that cue, however, "Spirit of the Universe" is a more
fascinating study. It begins with the first and only truly harmonious
statement of the love theme (and Neo hero theme) for the full ensemble
without any dissonance in the background whatsoever, and it features a
flowing dramatism and thematic resemblance, oddly, to his former
associate James Horner's sweeping theme for
Star Trek II: The Wrath
of Khan. From there, a boy soprano serves a dual purpose by adding a
religious implication of the film's final message (along with a rolling
harp) while also drawing a connection to the similar vocal heard in
The Matrix as Neo is first introduced to the crew and the real
world (though the soloists in the two works are different, as are the
entire choirs). At the end of "Spirit of the Universe," Davis
specifically returns to the finale of the first score, hinting very
slightly at the dual-chord theme and building up to one last,
suspenseful blast from the ensemble. It is here that you simply can't
resist appreciating Davis' use of percussion throughout the three
scores. Whether it is simple pounding on every drum known to man, or the
crashing of low notes on a piano like a small child, the percussion is
really the heart and soul of this trilogy. Many prefer to label the
brass as such, but it's hard to argue with the effect that the
percussion has on the ambience of these works. Davis allows the low
rumbling of the piano to simply fade away at the end of this score,
leaving an uneasy afterthought with the viewer and listener.
The score is mixed using very loud gains, with the more
sensitive cues raised in volume and the techno elements quieted to match
that dynamic range. It's a sort of "in your face" move by the engineers,
and while it may give the casual listener a headache, it also allows for
the full ensemble to be better heard on album. The best example of this
attention is heard in the rich and deep resonance of the opening
rumbling of the piano in "Logos/Main Title." The only cue seemingly over
the top is Juno Reactor's remix of "Neodammerung," called "Navras"
(meaning 'nine emotional states,' mirroring the Hindu belief that these
nine states are exhibited through music) and placed at the end of the
album. The Hindustani classical vocals and instrumentation here are
obviously out of place, but Davis' orchestral and choral foundation is
so strong that the cue could easily become a guilty pleasure for the
listener. A Middle-Eastern or Indian influence has become almost cliche
in recent years for large-scale film scores, but then again, Juno
Reactor's three artists provide enough techno flavor to simply throw the
whole cue into a realm of the bizarre. As a presentation on album, about
half of Davis' material is available in a generously straight forward
format. The first two scores from the trilogy had already both been
floating around the secondary bootleg market in a more complete form and
yet this final commercial album in the series is complete enough (and
largely without interruptions from songs) to suffice for most listeners.
Compared to the other two albums, Davis' music for
The Matrix
Revolutions is an engaging, fascinating, matured listening
experience, and while casual purchasers of only this effort may not
understand the evolution of its themes and harmonic structures, this
score is probably the easiest of the three for traditional film score
fans to enjoy on album. Still, Davis continues to utilize dissonance in
both the forefront and distance to provide that unsettling edge
necessary for the concept, and listeners should be aware that this score
is likewise no free tonal ride. Between this necessary element, the lack
of a more complete score presentation, and some downright funky
electronica,
The Matrix Revolutions is less than perfect on
album. But it offers much of the best music in the franchise, completing
Davis' outstanding achievement for the trilogy as a whole.
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| 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.
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The insert includes extensive credits and lyrics to "Neodammerung," but no extra
information about the score or film.
