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Resident Evil: Apocalypse: (Jeff Danna) If you stop
for a moment to give this film a single second of logical thought, then
you're wasting your time and missing the point. The only reason for a
sequel film such as
Resident Evil: Apocalypse to be made is to
siphon money from teenagers (and those who would still like to be a
teenager and/or sleep with one), most of whom have probably killed the
zombie villains in the story at some point in the original video game
series which inspired the films. Throw in the opportunity to place the
bodies of Milla Jovovich and Sienna Guillory on display and you have
flick aimed at one specific audience, and critics and reviewers are
not among that group. You have to wonder what residents of
Toronto think of seeing their city interpreted as Raccoon City, its
inhabitants turned into zombies by another escaped virus, and the likes
of which will be annihilated by a nuclear weapon to save the rest of the
world from its residents. It would be nice if Jovovich and Guillory
could escape the city along with their other tag-alongs, but who really
cares? Director and writer Alexander Witt and Paul W.S. Anderson
(respectively) have obviously taken inspiration from John Carpenter, but
that doesn't mean that they did a respectable job of capturing the
spirit of Carpenter's stylistic uniqueness with this 2004 abomination.
One of many areas where they tried to emulate a Carpenter film was in
the soundtrack department. Aside from the song situation (which led to
an album all to itself long before the score album was pressed), the
score imagined by the filmmakers would have the characteristic
combination of orchestral force with electronic modernism and coolness,
and the talented and quickly rising Jeff Danna was their choice for
composer. Listeners could hold at least some minimal hope that Danna
would produce a superior effort to the awkward combination of Marco
Beltrami and Marilyn Manson for the original
Resident Evil
soundtrack two years prior. Danna was coming off of a highly acclaimed
score for
The Gospel of John, shedding the gorgeous operatic
heights of that music in favor of ghoulish and relentless pounding of
orchestral and synthetic atonality in
Resident Evil: Apocalypse.
For those who had heard Danna's earlier efforts, including
"O"
and
The Kid Stays in the Picture, Danna's diversity of talent was
already apparent. Even so,
Resident Evil: Apocalypse is about a
far of a stretch from those scores (and his collaborative works with his
brother, Mychael,
Green Dragon among the best) in attitude as one
could get.
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As suspect in quality as it was,
Resident Evil:
Apocalypse represented Danna's first venture into the horror and
science fiction realm, and he responded by taking several months to
tinker with electronically manipulated sound effects to augment his
symphonic renderings. He indeed achieved a score well balanced between
the synthetic and organic, finding a solid level of comfortable
coexistence between these elements with which to satisfy both modes of
musical thought. With the electronics often utilized as rhythm-setters
and ambient sound effects, the string and (particularly) brass sections
offer repetitious, simplistic motifs to accompany the nearly constant
chase and fight sequences. The most dominant theme comes for Nemesis, a
static progression of massive chords heard best on monumental brass in
"The Nemesis is Awakened." By the second cue on the jumbled album
presentation, "Alice Battles the Nemesis," you already get the
impression that you're in a video game atmosphere; the repetition of
fast movements restrains the development of any single motif. This
somewhat interesting but eventually tiring continuation of shooting and
kicking music leaves you wishing for some direction (any direction!) in
which Danna can extend his music to the next level of intelligent
cohesion. But unlike other similarly fashioned horror and fantasy scores
of the time (Beltrami's
Hellboy, for instance), Danna either
didn't have a chance to offer any sophistication or he didn't attempt to
write it into the equation. The lack of evolutionary statements of theme
is unfortunate, several cues offering potentially enjoyable ideas that
Danna never seems to return to, including "The Nemesis vs. S.T.A.R.S"
and "Umbrella is Watching." In "The Crash Site," the score finally
explores some brooding sentimentality, and the "Searching for Alice" cue
gives listeners a more interesting variation on the electronic elements.
But in the end, the score whips you around like a game player or a
puppet, teasing with a crescendo serving as a false conclusion in "I
Remember Everything." There is impressive action material in
Resident
Evil: Apocalypse, especially performed by jumpy strings and harsh
brass tones, but it is unfortunately squashed by the mass of electronic
noise and the frightfully disjointed pace of movement. The 40-minute
score-only album presentation is not featured in chronological order and
is missing additional action music provided by composer Elia Cmiral for
the film, a source of discontentment for concept enthusiasts. Danna's
portion of the score is one that likely outshines the film's own
quality, which might explain the glowing comments from the filmmakers
about Danna's work for the project, but it will still find only a
limited audience in the film music collecting community.
*** Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download
The insert includes a short note about the score by the writer of the film.
