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Review of Aliens vs. Predator - Requiem (Brian Tyler)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you appreciate Brian Tyler's brutally immense and
frenetic action style that pounds and slashes with orchestral force in a
film that didn't deserve such well-thought constructs.
Avoid it... if you expect to hear truly satisfying and clearly delineated references to the most memorable aspects of the scores from the two original franchises.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
AVPR: Aliens vs. Predator - Requiem: (Brian Tyler)
People who actually went to see Aliens vs. Predator - Requiem in
the theatres should have been branded and refused jobs or places to live
for several years. There's really no excuse for films that are not only
as brainless as this 2007 extension of a greed-induced franchise
spin-off, but also as destructive to its fabled sets of alien species.
Whatever incredible mystique forged by the likes of Ridley Scott, James
Cameron, and John McTiernan for the creatures in the Alien and
Predator franchises is eviscerated by the Aliens vs.
Predator films, this latter entry particularly embarrassing in its
total lack of intelligence and unsophisticatedly nasty demeanor. As
expected, it was so bad that Fox decided not to show it to critics, but
that didn't stop a scathing reception anyway. Audiences thought less of
it compared to its predecessor as well, reducing its domestic grosses by
half. The plotline of a film like Aliens vs. Predator - Requiem
isn't really that important, though it suffices to say that a hybrid of
the two iconic species lands in Colorado and sends facehuggers out to
hospitals, pregnant women, children, etc, and a Predator from their home
space is sent to eliminate this threat. The attraction towards Aliens
vs. Predator - Requiem for undereducated male audiences is the
battle sequences between the creatures, and yet they are so infrequent
and badly shot in near total darkness that they're ultimately
unsatisfying. Given the anonymity of its cast and crew upon this film's
release (it represented the dubious debut of its pair of directors),
perhaps a film approaching gory parody territory was all that could be
expected. Over-thinking the concept is composer Brian Tyler, replacing
Harald Kloser's generic and surprisingly boring score for the previous
film with a rowdy and remarkably well developed sequel. Tyler, whose
career has been filled with a variety of such (usually) trashy
assignments, deserves better material to work with. In this case, all
anybody in the film music community really cared about was how well he
could merge the sounds of the two original franchises into the kind of
immense sonic battle that his rowdy orchestral capabilities have been
proven to yield.
The Alien franchise has never had a distinctive sound, Jerry Goldsmith's longing closing theme, James Horner's ambitious action style, and Elliot Goldenthal's post-modern, religiously brutal orchestral tendencies all notably representing individual entries. The Predator franchise has been long identified by Alan Silvestri's primal theme over memorable percussive rhythms. Intriguingly, Tyler doesn't clearly restate any of their main ideas, instead hinting at their components and supporting material in a fashion that perhaps suggests that he was instructed not to reprise old themes in full. This is something of a disappointment, especially with John Debney eventually reprising Silvestri's famous Predator theme for that concept's 2010 re-imagining. The lack of that theme in Aliens vs. Predator - Requiem is baffling, especially when Tyler tries to work around it and heavily suggest it without actually allowing it to flourish. That said, the composer does present a relentlessly brutal new identity for the franchise that really does put to shame Kloser's preceding efforts. The album is arranged with the most cohesive presentations of this idea up front, "Aliens vs. Predator - Requiem" immediately slapping you with a Carl Orff-style rhythm and orchestral volume rarely heard. The two variations on the title theme that occupy this cue borrow wild, rising and falling string figures and harsh brass from Elliot Goldenthal's darkest tones while also using an ominously rising main progression highly reminiscent of Trevor Jones' Dark City. The Goldenthal progression, along with that composer's percussive thuds and wailing brass dissonance, is a regular element of this score, though Tyler's habit of emulating Goldenthal's post-modern style in other works makes it difficult to specifically assign connections to Alien 3 here. The Orff-like rhythm is reprised in several places as a tool of momentum, including the start of "Opening Titles." That cue then presents Tyler's most consistent reference to Silvestri's Predator: that score's space/wonder theme. The (appropriate) theme extends into "Predicide" and "Coprocloakia" and start of "Skinned and Hanged" and breathes life into an effective idea that was a bit short-changed by both Silvestri and Debney in their franchise scores. Tyler never states Silvestri's actual Predator theme, but he does heavily suggest its rhythm at the end of "Power Struggle" and, with impressive bravado, the conclusion of "Predator Arrival." The only other references worth noting in Aliens vs. Predator - Requiem exist in "Requiem Epilogue," easily the score's best listening highlight on album. In this cue, Tyler (perhaps coincidentally) addresses Kloser's basic thematic chord progressions before launching into one of the most notable James Horner parodies of sort to ever exist. The entire second minute of that cue so expertly develops one of Horner's trademark rising structures from the 1980's (even down to the whimsical violins meandering over the top) that it's both intoxicating and laughable at once. Once again, why hasn't Tyler been given the chance to score a feature Star Trek film? While Aliens vs. Predator - Requiem is in part defined by all of these connections to previous scores, it does have some usual Tyler activity in the mix. The static snare rhythms with slight dissonant string shades in "National Guard Part 1," for instance, are very similar to Tyler's replacement Timeline score. He also has a capacity for producing ruckus like few composers in the younger generation; remarkably, Tyler creates such dense and frightening material while remaining loyal to an orchestra, with very little outward synthetic help to be heard. The powerhouse cue in Aliens vs. Predator - Requiem is "Decimation Proclamation," eight minutes of frenetic pounding and slashing accompanied by rousing, propulsive interludes of cohesive orchestral movement. It's a challenge to casually listen to this material, but it impresses on every technical level. There are only short respites from the nastiness of this score, most notably in the light acoustic guitar of "Special Delivery" and electric guitar of "Striptease," though the former cue is laced with distant siren effects and the latter cue dissolves into a dissonant stinger as necessary. The arrangement of the album does indeed place almost all of the highlights in the first half, with several of the more generic and less interesting atmospheric dissonance concentrated in the second half. Additionally, the album is simply too long of a listening experience to sustain interest. Tyler reportedly supports these immense albums featuring his scores, and while it is indeed great to be able to hear so much of what was recorded in each instance, many such works translate into superior 45-minute presentations. Among these is Aliens vs. Predator - Requiem, though there's enough ball-busting explosiveness and creative references to other composers' styles to warrant a recommendation of the product. ****
TRACK LISTINGS:
Total Time: 77:11
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert includes a list of performers, but no extra information about
the score or film.
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