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Underworld on DVD
• Expanded sound featurette • Dolby Digital 5.1 More DVD info... |
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Underworld on DVD
• Expanded sound featurette • Dolby Digital 5.1 More DVD info... |
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Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if you want the texture and atmosphere of Paul Haslinger's somewhat harmonic underscore instead of the film's more obvious song placements. Avoid it... if your world of werewolves and vampires rages with strictly heavy metal music and no keyboarded sentimentality will fit into that equation. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
Underworld: (Paul Haslinger) You sometimes find cases in which a film is universally loved by audiences and universally bashed by critics, and Underworld is such an example. The film is the directing debut of Len Wiseman, the respected art director of Stargate and Independence Day, and the one thing that everybody agrees on here is that Underworld has no shortage of beautiful sets. Audiences can't seem to get enough of vampire films in their blood, and Underworld presents a nocturnal vampire vs. werewolves war (how can these underground wars go on for centuries without the greater, normal public finding out by accident?) that takes the biting genre into the world of slow-motion Matrix-like action sequences. It is a visual stunner, as is leather-clad Kate Beckinsale, who, with her cute accent, seemed like the last choice to be cast as the best vampire fighter of the kingdom, but hey, who cares? So successful is this Matrix-gone-vampire scenario that Beckinsale has signed on for a sequel. Alas, the war between werewolves and vampires will rage on, and you can't help but get the feeling that audiences will flock to that film as well. Whatever you may think about the merits of the film, the choice of composer was consistent with the genre. Despite being classically trained in Salzburg and Vienna, composer Paul Haslinger is best known for his involvement as a member of the famed electronic band Tangerine Dream, and scored several films with them from the late 1980's on. He has served as an arranger and programmer for composer Graeme Revell in his top electronically-enhanced scores of the late 1990's, from Spawn to Tomb Raider, and also was the music producer for Red Planet. Paul Haslinger's first solo effort as a film composer came in 2000, and he has since scored the surfing film Blue Crush and written extra material for Minority Report that would end up in some of that film's trailers. His musical textures and atmospheres would be required for the murky settings of Underworld, and his work for the project would receive "sonic treatments" by industrial sound designer Brian Lustmord. You can easily tell that the makers of Underworld were hearing Matrix-inspired, techno-driven tunes in their head when they drawing out the storyboards for this film. It is rich with senseless violence and sufficient bullets to demand a rhythmically intense score, and in the parts of the film where heavy metal songs weren't employed, Haslinger's score was inserted to maintain that same futuristic edge. That is not to say, though, that Haslinger's score is that heavy. As a matter of fact, this music contains a considerable amount of introverted underscore. Several cues offer light keyboarding and basic, harmonic progressions... never establishing a theme, but succeeding in its need to establish that there is potentially a love between a vampire and werewolf that could end the centuries-old war. More of this material comes to light as the film nears its somewhat sentimental end, and the album finishes with a bonus track that is by far more melodic than anything in the previous score selections. The texture throughout the score is consistent, with a wet sound reverberating through clangs of metal and distant, deep droning. There aren't very many samples, and even few mutilations of those samples, and it wouldn't be too much of a dare to say that Haslinger holds a pretty conservative line there. Even the snippets of Beckinsale's dialogue from the film are mixed without interrupting the music. Fans of orchestral scores won't find any classically-inclined material here, but they could also be heartened by the lack of unrestrained electric guitar-ripping at every turn. Ironically, the most interesting moments of Haslinger's score are those in which he presents a hard-ass rhythm with a tough edge. The meaty rhythms in "Deathdealers Deploy," "Metamophosis," and "Fire Falling from the Sky" offer the true personality of the genre. Some of the sound effect samples in these cues are fresh enough to sustain individuality for Underworld, although they make you pause the music at a few points to make that sound you hear really isn't a phone ringing in the room. Also to Haslinger's credit is the fact that the sound effects never overwhelm you with dissonance, meaning that the heavy, rhythm-propelled portions of the score are generally cool to the ears. The effectiveness of these rhythms, and especially the percussively creative one in "Metamophosis," almost makes the underscore sound mundane by comparison. For fans of the film and its inherent genre, the score for Underworld may not be as appealing as the song album, which featured either all-new songs written for the film, or remixes of previously written songs. The score album does have one other crucial element for Underworld fans; it features the bonus song "Red Tape" (by Agent Provocateur) that was heard in all of the film's trailers and television advertising. The sole recording available of this piece is on the score album, although its heavy metal genre perhaps fits better with the tone and mood of the song album. At any rate, Paul Haslinger's score is as good as anyone can expect for the genre, and plays remarkably well on album, even if it does suffer from a lack of serious thematic or emotional development. ***
The insert includes no extra information about the score or film. Early advance notice to stores on this album listed anywhere from 15 to 18 tracks. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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