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| Silvestri |
The Avengers: (Alan Silvestri) Hapless liberals who
stand outside Wall Street and protest societal income disparity in the
United States should rightfully boycott the series of Marvel Studios
films leading up to and including 2012's
The Avengers because, in
2005 and 2006, Marvel teamed up with Merrill Lynch and pitched the
financing of these movies to Wall Street analysts eager to line the
pockets of the top 1%. Their plan worked, and since 2008 these movies
have earned countless hundreds of millions of dollars amid popular
praise, especially for the
Iron Man entries. The planned
culmination of the "introductory" films was always meant to be
The
Avengers, possibly opening the door for multiple ensemble cast
entries after many of the leading stars were locked up in multi-picture
deals. The 2012 film, titled
Avengers Assemble in the United
Kingdom so clueless audiences don't expect to witness John Steed and
Emma Peel continue their flirtations when walking into theatres, was
generally well received by critics and has to be considered a popular
success despite juggling so many prior concepts and characters in one
condensed plot. While each of the four leading titular heroes from
previous movies is given their due screen time (along with several
secondary characters from previous entries, including Samuel L. Jackson
as the organizer of this party), the basic plot points owe the most to
2011's
Thor. The fantasy hero's brother from that story, Loki,
attempts to conquer Earth with the help of allies using
extra-terrestrial, bad-ass technology in
The Avengers. In between
him and this goal, of course, is the assembled group of Marvel's
protagonists, most of them still shaking events that happened to them in
their individual movies. As is customary in contemporary blockbusters,
the destruction of cityscapes is an absolute necessity, and terror-weary
New York City is the logical host for such eye candy. Comparatively
speaking, Marvel's six years of development leading up to
The
Avengers was a tremendous success, and this culmination only suffers
from a small handful of continuity issues, one of which the dropping of
actor Edward Norton from the ensemble cast after the former performer of
Bruce Banner was deemed by the studio not to espouse the proper
"creativity and collaborative spirit" to continue. The music is another
area of discrepancy worth noting in these films.
The soundtracks in the Marvel series of movies have
been radically different in style, ranging from pop-oriented modernism
to mostly orchestral in a traditional sense. The composers attached to
these individual films changed with each entry, too, in conjunction with
the shifts in director. With the exception of the two
Iron Man
scores (for which Ramin Djawadi and John Debney underachieved by
pandering to the lowest common denominators of blockbuster film music),
the results by Craig Armstrong, Patrick Doyle, and Alan Silvestri ranged
from sufficiently entertaining to borderline excellent. For
The
Avengers, Marvel turned to their most recent collaborator,
Silvestri, to bring the right tone to the ensemble picture, a logical
choice given the composer's prior involvement in similar circumstances
for
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra and
The A-Team. While
those scores did not particularly impress most Silvestri collectors
hoping for a return to
Predator,
Judge Dredd, and
The
Mummy Returns form, they are representative of Silvestri's attempt
to evolve traditional orchestral bravado in the era of obvious synthetic
augmentation. A similar stylistic approach is applied to
The
Avengers, a generally symphonic representation from yesteryear
blended with a few unique electronic accents for occasional color.
Standard Silvestri techniques are present, including rollicking,
percussion-led rhythms and ensemble strikes punctuated by aggressively
slapped snare. A few more metallic percussion accents would have been
merited. The wholesome innocence of
Captain America: The First
Avenger is largely diluted, Silvestri content to play the score
safely generic as to not offend the sensibilities of any of the main
characters. He devises two significant new themes for
The
Avengers, one a title identity that only truly enunciates its full
form as the heroes coalesce with absolute unity late in the picture.
Silvestri wrote the demo-like cue "The Avengers" early in the process,
including some retro drum pads reminiscent of the 1980's, and director
Joss Whedon insisted that the theme (and some of the same retro
attitude) be utilized throughout the score. This main theme, while
generic among Silvestri's anthems, is sufficiently memorable, expressed
with brassy glory in several short snippets before achieving its natural
culmination in "A Promise." It remains to be known, however, if this
somewhat average identity can helm a series of movies of this magnitude.
There is a "snazziness" factor that remains elusive in Silvestri's
recent themes for ball-busting activities.
The second major new theme in
The Avengers is an
individual identity sought by the director for Natasha Romanoff's Black
Widow persona. This distinctly Eastern European idea is a highlight of
the score and occupies most of the memorably thematic moments of the
score's first half. Introduced in eerie, plucked form in
"Interrogation," this idea is developed well throughout "Red Ledger"
before a short but redemptive and heroic statement in "I Got a Ride."
Unfortunately, Whedon did not encourage Silvestri to utilize any of the
themes from the prior movies, and the composer therefore missed a
tremendous opportunity to create an intellectually pleasing score rather
than a basically functional one. He did work his
Captain America
theme into several cues, with especially notable fragmentary references
late in the score. While reprises of Armstrong's theme for the Hulk or
Debney's underutilized identity for Tony Stark may not have been
particularly effective with audiences because of their relative
obscurity, the absence of Patrick Doyle's brothers theme from
Thor is an obvious and curious omission from
The Avengers.
The dynamic between the two characters is clearly a central aspect of
this movie, and the lack of any of Doyle's impressive thematic
constructs for their universe is an major disappointment. Silvestri does
sometimes suggest stylistic connections to his predecessor's scores,
including some Djawadi/Debney contemporary keyboarding in "Stark Goes
Green" and perhaps a touch of Doyle's rhythmic percussion in
"Performance Issues." The most curious connection in
The Avengers
comes in the fantastic cue "Helicarrier," which seems to get sidetracked
with Henry Jackman's unrelated Marvel music for
X-Men: First
Class. Overall, there is ten to fifteen minutes of noteworthy action
material in
The Avengers, but don't be surprised if some
listeners find it to be too streamlined or even boring. A soft guitar
passage at the outset of "The Promise" offers tonal deviation that would
have been more welcome elsewhere as well. So much of this score still
sounds like Silvestri on auto-pilot, and while enthusiasts of the movie
could probably award this effort a solid four stars, those expecting the
composer to match his top form and bring the franchise's identities
together intelligently may consider it a more meager effort. The album
situation for the score is somewhat unconventional, a commercial
download release containing twelve fewer minutes of material than the CD
alternative released by Hollywood Records and Intrada Records. Aside
from the CD's addition of "Interrogation," most of the difference exists
in the length of the available cues, the bulk of important material
available on the shorter product. An adequate score all around, but not
an exemplary one.
*** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
| Bias Check: |
For Alan Silvestri reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.46
(in 41 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.33
(in 39,965 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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The insert of the CD includes a lengthy note from the director
about Silvestri and the score.
