Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if you seek an improvement on the franchise's music in this extremely frantic and disjointed electronic and brass explosion of noise that could easily accompany a first-person killing video game. Avoid it... if you are expecting the same level of sophistication and motific development that you hear in most other Jeff Danna efforts. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
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. 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. *** Track Listings:
Total Time: 39:46
All artwork and sound clips from Resident Evil: Apocalypse are Copyright © 2004, Varèse Sarabande. 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 10/8/04, updated 10/7/11. Review Version 4.1 - PHP (Filmtracks Publications). Copyright © 2004-2013, Christian Clemmensen. All rights reserved. |
