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Virus: (Joel McNeely) There really is no excuse for
the existence of
Virus, an incredibly dull and uninspired remake
of the film
Deep Rising, which hadn't exactly impressed anyone
itself the previous year. Pieces of the
Alien franchise are
littered throughout the story as well, which is supposedly based on a
Dark Horse Comic Book Series by Chuck Pfarrer. The concept of
Virus involves the crew of a salvage tugboat that attempts to
claim an adrift Russian science vessel as bounty. As expected, however,
a beam of energy from space has hit the ship during a typhoon and turned
its mechanized systems into a cyborg-creating menace that seeks to kill
everything it encounters. Extremely dark photography, unconvincing
special effects, and alien creatures that bore are all defining aspects
of a film that was soundly greeted with critical insults. Universal
slipped the film under the mainstream radar in January of 1999 and
little has been made of it since. For composer Joel McNeely,
Virus was just another entry in a string of failed action
ventures that he (and many of his fans) had hoped would launch the
promising young artist into the mainstream. Instead, after
The
Avengers,
Soldier, and
Virus, among other flops,
McNeely's career retreated back to conducting duties and a plethora of
unremarkable scoring chores for obscure projects. Like nearly everyone
else in the production, McNeely was the target of a fair amount of
criticism for his contribution. It was his first venture in the horror
genre and, on par with those other elements of
Virus, his music
is extremely derivative of existing works. McNeely had the reputation at
the time of being able to very capably emulate the styles of John
Williams and Jerry Goldsmith, which won him the admiration and high
hopes of many, but also caused him to write music that constantly
reminded listeners of more established composers rather than branching
out and clearly defining himself. For
Virus, he so thoroughly
emulates the styles of the first two
Alien scores (by Goldsmith
and James Horner) and a handful of John Frizzell and James Newton Howard
works that
Virus, despite its strengths, seems cheap.
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There are, naturally, several parts of
Virus
that distinctly qualify in the "guilty pleasure" category. In fact,
there are two cues in the score that are extremely entertaining, and
another two or three that will easily hold your interest. But in the
series of references to scores of an era past, McNeely never draws his
work together as a cohesive whole. It's fully orchestral and earns
respect for its crisp recording and incorporation of deep male chorus.
During the best of the action sequences in
Virus, McNeely so
incredibly captures the essence of Goldsmith's rhythmic powerhouses that
you can't help but love it. The early cue "Typhoon Leah" is the
highlight of the score, twisting that Goldsmith sound into such a
perfect representation of the boiling seas that you'll find yourself
coming back for the opening two minutes of the cue time and time again.
McNeely's handling of brass layers and percussion is as impressive here
as it was in his additional material for
Air Force One. Also a
fantastic listening experience from
Virus is the "End Credits"
suite, which summarizes four themes from the film. Unfortunately, not
all of these themes have any context, for only a couple of them actually
appear in the score. One of them is the heroically tragic, varied brass
theme for the Russian ship that also receives brief treatment in the
opening "Volkov and the MIR." The other is a thoughtful motif heard in
"Nadia's Story." The other remaining harmonic statements in "End
Credits" are strangely singular, including the Russian march that
frightfully resurrects Basil Poledouris' hymn for
The Hunt for Red
October. Outside of the opening three and closing two cues on album,
Virus is extremely boring, failing to expand upon its dissonant
suspense to anywhere near the kind of creativity that existed in
The
Avengers. Still, the orchestrations are crisp and "Typhoon Leah" is
a genuine ass-kicker. If you can set aside the obvious references to
other scores, there's almost fifteen minutes of solid entertainment to
be had. This album was the first major score release for the new Hip-O
division of Universal's MCA Records; perhaps it's no surprise that Hip-O
didn't pursue many other mainstream scores thereafter.
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| Bias Check: | For Joel McNeely reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating
is 3.31 (in 16 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.14
(in 7,298 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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The insert includes no extra information about the score or film.
