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| Zimmer |
The Amazing Spider-Man 2: (Hans Zimmer/Various) As
obnoxious as franchise reboots can be, the seemingly unnecessary but
nevertheless profitable 2012 resurrection of the "Spider-Man" concept
with a new cast and crew proved to be a surprising artistic success.
Even before the triumphs of director Marc Webb's
The Amazing
Spider-Man, Marvel and Columbia envisioned a renewed series of
sequels and spin-offs, and the first of these continued fiscal
powerhouses is 2014's
The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Not as satisfying
in its narrative is this entry, some of its Oscorp and Green Goblin
concepts competing unfavorably with the renditions of that storyline in
the prior decade's "Spider-Man." The star of the show, however, is Jamie
Foxx in the role as the sympathetic villain (aren't most of them?),
Electro, whose haphazardly uncontrolled capabilities with electricity
provide this tale's main challenge. Young Peter Parker, still searching
for his true identity, a sense of family, and his romantic future, once
again cannot resist the urge to save New York, where, for the first
time, an entire "Spider-Man" movie was shot. Despite the carryover of
most of the primary cast and crew, composer James Horner did not return
for
The Amazing Spider-Man 2. This franchise has been blessed
with music from many of the great composers of the 1990's, including
Horner, Danny Elfman, John Debney, and Christopher Young, and it is
perhaps only fitting that another star ascendant during that decade,
Hans Zimmer, received his crack at the concept for the 2014 film. Now
the composer of choice for blockbuster superhero films due to his
marketability, Zimmer has conquered the realm of "Batman" with varying,
debatable degrees of success while offering completely misguided music
for the 2013 reboot of the "Superman" character. Not surprisingly, the
shift from Horner to Zimmer for
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 brings a
completely different procedural and emotional dynamic to the table,
tossing aside traditional methodology for Zimmer's super-hyped
collaborative process of creation. Not to waste any such opportunity,
Zimmer collected six primary artists (Pharrell Williams, Johnny Marr,
Tom Holkenborg, Mike Einzinger, Andrew Kawczynski and Steve Mazzaro) and
five ghostwriters to ultimately form a dozen minds alike for this
project, the former group termed the "Magnificent Six" while the latter
toiling in the shadows like usual Remote Control ghostwriters.
Comparisons to the Elfman and Horner legacies in this
franchise are inevitable. Both composers wrote highly effective themes
for the title character and wrapped them in a tasteful blend of
symphonic heart and synthetic intrigue. When Horner stepped on stage to
accept the Max Steiner Award at the 2013 Film Music Festival Hollywood
in Vienna, the orchestra performed a rousing arrangement of the
composer's main identity for
The Amazing Spider-Man that easily
confirmed its place among the top five scores of 2012. The most
important achievement by Elfman and Horner (and continued by Debney and
Young to a limited degree) for this concept was the vital balance
between coolness and loneliness, the geek of Peter Parker defining
Spider-Man rather than the fantasy of the costume defining the heart of
the wayward young man. The Elfman and Horner scores emphasized the
awesomeness of Spider-Man from the perspective of a character mutated
out of a nerd. Parker's center of gravity always returns to his lack of
belonging, the absence of family, and the awkwardness of his
communication. For all the soaring themes with trumpets, cooing choirs,
and nimble electronic accompaniment, the music for this concept has the
irresistible urge to return to the basic familial piano and the
heartfelt expressions of loss that accompany it. Elfman and Horner
resisted the urge to provide music that suggested either technological
prowess for the character or a bloated sense of bravado, their scores
usually emphasizing the treble ranges in an effort to remind audiences
that Spider-Man isn't a big man wearing a heavy black suit and riding
around in 5-ton vehicles. This hero is a spider, soaring effortlessly
and using his airy genetic capabilities and nerdy demeanor to
reluctantly accomplish his mission. There are many parallels between
Parker and Clark Kent, both hopelessly awkward in their personal lives,
lacking a feeling of belonging and family, struggling for a normal love
life. It should come as no surprise, after all of these basic facts are
considered, that a composer like the contemporary incarnation of Hans
Zimmer would have difficulty addressing the heart of either character.
And, just as Zimmer completely failed to capture the spirit of Kent in
Man of Steel, he has become the first composer in the
"Spider-Man" franchise to completely fail to capture the spirit of
Parker in
The Amazing Spider-Man 2. It is painful to hear a
composer strive to innovate and yet miss the mark so badly on something
so basic as the heart of the primary character.
What you have in the music for
The Amazing Spider-Man
2 is a composer who approached this assignment asking the question
"How can we make this more cool?" rather than "How can we better
enunciate the main character's emotions?" By concentrating on the
former, Zimmer once again collected a desired group of music industry
collaborators and, as the director stated, "
hammered the chord
progressions" into the form of a score. Zimmer's admitted purpose of
these collaborators was to have them write individual songs and score
elements that would address the pop culture that Parker is exposed to in
the story. The filmmakers go so far as to suggest that Parker sits
around listening to Pharrell Williams music. Thus, they would argue,
Elfman and Horner got it wrong; Parker and his alter-ego require music
with greater "Zimmeresque" sensibilities, including brooding baselines,
minor-third perpetuity, electronic elements in front of symphonic ones,
simple thematic statements without counterpoint, limited shifts to the
major key, lower choral depth, and long lines of ambient background
sounds. In other words, yet another superhero comes to Zimmer rather
than Zimmer addressing the actual character needs of the superhero. The
question then becomes this: Does the score for
The Amazing Spider-Man
2 exist as a simplistic, masculine form of its predecessors because
that is the only realistic result that a person could expect from a
collaboration of pop stars (including, at this point, Zimmer)? Or is
Zimmer himself actually incapable of realizing anything else? He made a
point of declaring this score different from his prior writing. Really?
A few performances by trumpets and woodwinds in the major key and the
rest of the electronic droning and manipulation is no longer a defining
factor? Make no mistake about it,
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is a
very typical Zimmer score of the 2010's, yet another exercise in the
cycling of steroids to film music in an effort to satisfy personal and
industry expectations that deeper, lower, bigger, and more experimental
is the desired direction of blockbuster soundtracks. This score makes
feeble attempts to resemble some of the best of Horner's preceding
effort. It uses a piano and woodwinds for understated and cold themes of
romance and family. It applies trumpets to a main theme that tries but
fails to evoke the same flighty heroism espoused by Horner, instead
yielding a tepid blend of Randy Newman and Aaron Copland tradition that
is stated sparingly and in token fashion. These elements are an
afterthought compared to Zimmer's concentration on aggression and
power.
You have to wonder if Zimmer becomes hypnotized by the
villains in his superhero scores. One of the fundamental rules of
superhero music writing is to concentrate first and foremost on the
protagonist. Make his theme the most obvious, state it most frequently,
and give it the most emotional development. Zimmer and his crew not only
ignore these proven techniques, but they do it enthusiastically in the
name of innovation. It should be no surprise that an unhealthy
concentration on the coolness and awesomeness factors, especially when
it comes to villains, is what produces a cue as hideously inappropriate
and insufferable as "Still Crazy" in
The Amazing Spider-Man 2. If
you have a group of pop artists sitting around in Zimmer's dimly lit,
bizarrely ornate studio toying with ideas in front of photographers,
what else would you expect? The groupthink mentality that strives for
that perfect guitar effect or minor-third sweet spot is not concerned
with subtlety, and the total absence of subtlety in this score is its
ultimate failure. Every hand is overplayed in
The Amazing Spider-Man
2. The main theme sounds forced and hokey compared to surrounding
material. The softer material is overwhelmed by droning bass and
atmospheric effects. The villains' themes are literally pounded with
stock Remote Control hits and electric guitar rips. Any attempt at
"mystery" in this music simply rehashes Batman-related darkness. The
identity for Electro has been widely praised for its originality, and
Zimmer does deserve kudos for this particular experimentation. But even
here, the mix of the chanted words of hate is too prominent, making it
arguably laughable. Once again, subtlety is swept aside for outright
musical representations of a character's instability. However effective
it might be in context, that effect exists between intolerable and
humorous on album. If you back up and look at the spotting of the score
for the film (who knows if Zimmer even bothers with such traditions
anymore), you'll note that the villains' musical identities receive far
more air time than Spider-Man's, precisely the opposite of the way
effective superhero scores function (unless the villains win,
Star
Wars: The Empire Strikes Back a great example of inversed thematic
emphasis). When you have the hero and villain locked in battle during a
scene, you have to give them at least equal melodic and stylistic air
time in their music. Zimmer and his crew, quick to emphasize the cool
force of the dominant villain material, manage to screw it up. In fact,
the musical interplay between good and evil in this work is almost
non-existent, a stark contrast to Horner's fantastic sonic
battles.
In sum,
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is a score that
serves as evidence that the process used by Zimmer is inadequate to
address certain emotional realms. The fact that a blend of
The Da
Vinci Code and
The House of the Spirits is featured in
ultra-typical Zimmer mode in "I Need to Know" is indicative of artistic
stagnation. The reliance upon bass elements, even in an emotional
expression as in "No Place Like Home," is still constricting. The minor
third progressions have become obnoxious to the point of hilarity. Can't
any of Remote Control-related artists come up with foundations more
interesting? Not just textures and effects, but foundations? One has to
wonder if Zimmer simply suffers from a general inability to address
emotions on screen with any subtlety whatsoever. You heard him toil
badly in
12 Years a Slave, a very poor and insufficient score
that sends you fleeing to John Williams'
Rosewood as a vastly
superior alternative. Perhaps Zimmer's skills as a composer have eroded
away as he has pursued his enthusiasm for serving as a producer. If he
took his compositional and arrangement duties as seriously, you might
have heard utilization of Horner's themes in this work. Some franchise
enthusiasts claim to hear pieces of Horner progressions here, such as
the rising violin line late in "In Need to Know" and early in "You're
That Spider Guy" (as well as some hints midway through "Harry's Suite").
These are not obvious, however, and there still exists no good reason
for Horner's fabulous themes to be jettisoned. Ultimately, this score
will be remembered for its unnecessary attempts to push the envelope.
The Electro material and wailing siren effects throughout are too
obvious, especially compared to the crew's more effective web-like
electronic background element (sparingly applied). From a neutral
standpoint, the 2-CD expanded album for
The Amazing Spider-Man 2
contains much of the better music in the score, the duo of "Harry's
Suite" and "No Place Like Home" worth your time if you appreciate the
rest of the work. On the other hand, both CDs' collection of pop songs
is completely useless in its refusal to adhere to any one genre style,
and the "Electro Remix" at the end will send you off into the streets to
find something to throttle. It's difficult to say that anyone expected
Zimmer to able to compete favorably with Horner and Elfman in this
franchise, especially given how popular their scores remain. Zimmer's
music alternates between frightfully irritating and sadly disappointing,
both because of the simplicity of his constructs and renderings. His
assumptions need checked as well, because given the hopeless geek that Peter
Parker is, regardless of what he's shown listening to on screen as a marketing
ploy, he might be the type to appreciate James Horner music more
than that of anyone in the "Magnificent Six."
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| Bias Check: |
For Hans Zimmer reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 2.93
(in 97 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 2.97
(in 275,504 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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The inserts include a note from the director about the score. The packaging of the
Deluxe Edition is abnormally sized in portrait orientation and its cardboard structure
makes it difficult to remove the CDs without potentially scratching them. Who designs
such impractical nonsense?
