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| Zimmer |
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| Holkenborg |
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice: (Hans
Zimmer/Tom Holkenborg/Various) Just as the Marvel Cinematic Universe has
officially lost all creative control of itself in the pursuit of cheap
profits, so has sunk the DC Comics universe as well, its famous anchors
of Batman and Superman sharing the screen for the first time in 2016's
much maligned
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. The Zack Snyder
follow-up to the re-envisioned Superman movie
Man of Steel from
2013 reboots the Batman concept on screen yet another time and expands
its fanboy enthusiasm for the universe, not to mention merchandising
potential, by introducing several auxiliary DC characters in its
haphazard storyline. Gone from any of these movies is the sense of
unbridled heroism in an optimistic sense, the brooding of everyone
involved so prevalent that one must once again commend
The Lego
Movie for appropriately poking fun at the surly demeanor of this
era's superhero, both in its Batman's spoken lines and in the silly,
intentionally hateful song that accompanies him. When you consider the
battles of ridiculously epic proportions being proposed in these
superhero movies, the nastiness conveyed by their distrusting and
distrusted characters, and, by the time of
Batman v Superman: Dawn of
Justice, open expression of humanity's xenophobic political response
to yesterday's bright saviors, particularly Superman in this case, one
cannot help but understand why so many angry American men are actually
voting for Donald Trump for president during this time. Movies like
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice feed off of the population's
frustrations with the positive side of establishment figures, forcing
heroes to lose their dichotomy and expose their supposedly normal
selves, the Bruce Waynes and Clark Kents, as being a fair dose as
nasty as the villains they fight. The plot of
Batman v Superman: Dawn
of Justice doesn't really matter except to say reiterate the need
for studio profits, and the formula unfortunately continues to work, the
film netting good (though not spectacular) grosses despite widespread
disgust or dismissal from critics. These films are all process and
little true character or style, and many audiences clearly don't
care.
It should come as no surprise that the music for
Batman
v Superman: Dawn of Justice, like that for
Man of Steel, is
equally about formulaic process and possesses, as expected, minimal
character or style. Despite the efforts of Danny Elfman, Patrick Doyle,
James Horner, and, to a lesser extent, Brian Tyler, to bring some
semblance of musical intelligence to the comic book adaptations of this
age, the genre remains dominated by Hans Zimmer and his Remote Control
music production company. The dark, animosity-riddled vision of the
superhero realm created by Snyder has a symbiotic relationship with the
equally oppressive and dispiriting tone coming from Zimmer and his team
of ghostwriters for these films, and many enthusiasts of the composer's
aggressively morbid handling of the genre will argue that the man is
simply providing filmmakers and audiences what they want to hear. The
score for
Man of Steel, composed by Zimmer in conjunction with
his preferred team of collaborators for that moment, was met with glee
from young male listeners who, largely, had appreciated his music for
the Christopher Nolan
Batman Begins trilogy. Film music critics,
meanwhile, lambasted Zimmer and
Man of Steel nearly uniformly,
yielding a rare moment of near total convergence of professional
opinion. Intriguingly, critical reactions to
Batman v Superman
have been similar, though not quite as negative, and the mass of those
young men who typically embrace everything from Zimmer may be starting
to reluctantly agree that the formula's execution, at least this time,
has grown tired and lacks inspiration. Reuniting with Zimmer from
Man
of Steel for
Batman v Superman is Tom Holkenborg (otherwise
known as Junkie XL), who is fresh off of the absolutely hideous,
explosively flatulent superhero score for
Deadpool and yet is
defended by Zimmer in every regard despite his clear lack of knowledge
about how to handle this genre. Meanwhile, typical Zimmer ghostwriters
Steve Mazzaro, Andrew Kawczynski, and Benjamin Wallfisch join the party
to contribute adaptations of thematic ideas or contribute mind-numbing
sound design. Of course, the patented Zimmer collaboration process
doesn't allow listeners to really evaluate who was responsible for what
in these scores, and that's not Zimmer's concern. He simply wants to
have fun creating film scores even if the result of his group-think
process continues to be utterly dysfunctional.
Zimmer reportedly labored over the strategy of tackling
Batman v Superman for months before ultimately producing the only
result that film music collectors already expected to hear. Listening to
the man describe the agony of his creative process in each his
interviews for these types of pictures is astonishingly perplexing, the
media hype surrounding his answers bloated beyond all reasonable
expectations. It remains disturbing just how much the composer claims to
struggle to find inspiration and then, in the end, leans on his
collaborators to help flesh out the same simplistic musical constructs
and renderings each time. For
Batman v Superman, at least you can
get the impression that there was a more concerted effort to map out the
themes of the DC universe. Zimmer was intent upon discarding his
underdeveloped Batman theme from his Nolan films, which is actually
something of a disappointment considering how obnoxious his new theme
for the character's forceful side reveals itself to be. The two main
identities of Superman from
Man of Steel, the two-note rising
phrases for the heroic element and the softer piano melody for his
adoptive family, return to the best of the ability of Zimmer and his
ghostwriting clones. Batman's new identity is led by a pounding series
of notes, always led by one longer note and four in succession
afterwards. All of them are on key, of course, because that's Remote
Control methodology at its finest. Sometimes there's a sixth note
appended to the line for whatever reason. The score brutally shoves this
theme down your throat right at the outset of "Beautiful Lie" and
proceeds to utilize it as a rhythmic tool throughout the score. Bruce
Wayne's many lamentations receive a more reasonable though too distant
melody that is basically sufficient but ruined for the finely-tuned
Zimmer-collector's ear because its descending counterpoint line (1:10
into "Beautiful Lie" and 7:26 into "Black an Blue") is a long and direct
lift from
Tears of the Sun. Trying to save the day is a cameo by
Jerry Goldsmith, whose theme from the finale of
Alien, performed
most frequently on lonesome trumpet (imagine that!) graces the score
three or four times to represent a common bond between the two lead
protagonists in their connection to their mothers. Despite poor mixing,
the idea is intelligently interwoven in that regard, helping bring the
two characters together ultimately, but it still makes you wonder if the
galactic threats to humanity suggested in this move are of the famed
Alien variety. Let's hope so.
While the Wayne/Kent thematic material in
Batman v
Superman is halfway decent and, thankfully, rather plentiful, all
things considered, the identities for the actual superhero alter egos
continue to disappoint. The Superman theme will not thrill some
listeners as it did in "Flight" from the prior score, its muted presence
best exemplified by the rather tepid opening of "Men Are Still Good."
The Kent family idea is underplayed on the album compared to in the
film. As for Batman, the question remains as to why Zimmer has to pound
away at his notes to express anything even remotely important. Such
techniques are holdovers from the 1990's, especially when the ensemble
of players is mixed to sound inauthentic, and all you have to do is
revisit something from Zimmer's heyday, like "Hate" from
Point of No
Return to find a much better enunciated version of the same general
technique. There eventually has to be an end to the incessantly pounded
phrases of notes in these scores. It dates back more than a decade for
Zimmer, of course, and includes his famous "horn of doom" effect from
Inception and others. This soundtrack should have been titled
Sforzando v Rinforzando: Dawn of Wrist Injuries because the
amount of forced accent to notes in the score's major thematic portions
is totally ridiculous. You almost wonder if the people keyboarding this
rubbish into the computers are literally pounding the keys like a
five-year-old, begging fate for a sprained wrist. For those familiar
with notation, forget the distinction between one sudden sforzando stab
and a sustained rinforzando phrase of emphasized notes. For Zimmer and
Remote Control, there needs to be a new notation: "zimforzando." Just
pound the shit out of every note and forget the nuances of anything
around them! Not surprisingly, the melodic highlights of
Batman v
Superman are the more subtle expressions that aren't swallowed up by
the ambience; even here, insanely derivative elements abound. Aside from
the aforementioned
Tears of the Sun connections, the cello lines
at 4:46 into "Men Are Still Good" can't help but remind you of Elliot
Goldenthal's own
Batman maneuverings in conjunction with, oddly,
the introduction to "Gollum's Song" in
The Lord of the Rings: The Two
Towers. The formation of sensitivity at 4:35 into "This is My World"
recalls Elfman's
Real Steel. Zimmer's idea for Lex Luthor is a
blatant carryover from
Sherlock Holmes and, for whatever reason,
applies distorted, highly reverbed low piano that emulates the tango
scene from
Moulin Rouge.
Speaking of Lex Luthor's theme in
Batman v
Superman, the secondary identities in the score are a mixture of
highlights and outright disasters. Luthor's material is summarized in
"The Red Capes are Coming" and once again exhibits "zimforzando"
pounding at its most primordial, yet another reduction of a complex
villain to stupid simplicity regardless of Zimmer's extremely misplaced
attempt to lace the idea with creative instrumental colors to represent
brilliant insanity and malevolence. Reprised in "Problems Up Here," this
theme is ludicrous in its overplayed demeanor and makes one wonder if
Zimmer (and yes, this material sounds like pure Zimmer on his own... no
ghostwriters here, in all likelihood) was trying to be cute in a 2010's
variation of John Williams' take on the villains in the 1977
Superman. Not much more intelligent is the Doomsday theme in
"Tuesday" and "Blood of My Blood," which, of course, makes more use of
"zimforzando" pounding on key. Surprised? Don't be. Descending lines
that extend out of this idea, once again using very low, perhaps
distorted piano to denote menace, degenerate into mere sound effects of
a grating electronic variety in the former cue. The highlight of the
score for most listeners is the rip-snorting motif for Wonder Woman in
"Is She With You?" Even here, Batman's "zimforzando" rhythmic hits lead
the way for the Wonder Woman theme's one repeating phrase. Zimmer and
his team thought the theme was immensely appropriate because it was
performed extremely aggressively by a woman on an electric cello.
Strangely, though, when heard outside of context, the coolness factor
and repetitive insistence built into its presentation make it a better
match to represent Luthor. Think about that one for a moment. People
like the theme because it actually has a sense of style in an otherwise
drab environment, but in this plot, that more complicated thematic line
and its performance flair are attributed to the wrong character. The
album presentations don't really help with any of these impressions,
surely, because so many of the more subtle variations of the Wonder
Woman and Superman themes in particular were absent from even the
expanded soundtrack product originally released with the film. Listeners
can hear nice summaries of the softer Superman material in "Day of the
Dead" and "This is My World." Meanwhile, "Beautiful Lie" and "Men are
Still Good" substantially represent Batman's themes. Some cues that
would suggest solid Batman or Bruce Wayne development, such as
"Vigilante," "May I Help You, Mr. Wayne?," and "They Were Hunters," are
mostly ambient and represent missed opportunities for poignant
development.
Perhaps the greatest sin committed by Zimmer,
Holkenborg, and their ghostwriters in their approach to
Batman v
Superman is the mind-boggling lack of interplay between the themes
they created. The film literally pits these legends against each other
in battle, and despite the fact that the composers wrote all these
identities for the characters, none of them substantially battles each
other in a musical sense in the score. There are a couple of places,
including "Is She With You?," when the pounding rhythm for Batman
underlies some other melodic action, but never does the score really
follow this logic to a natural end. Such is the problem with these
collaborative scores. In
Star Wars: The Force Awakens, John
Williams eventually begins to find ways to suggest Rey's theme and the
Force theme in tandem, just as you would hope to hear. In a score like
Batman v Superman, Zimmer and his team are simply having fun
throwing musical paint at the walls to see what sticks and adhering to
basic sketches when necessary. Nobody is sitting down and ensuring that
there is proper thematic evolution and interplay in the work. That
should be Zimmer's job, but perhaps that's too much complication to ask
for from a Remote Control team effort. That reality is unacceptable,
especially for the money these artists are being paid, and it remains a
good argument against Zimmer's methodology. The connectivity of the
score's structural parts instead relies upon the tone and mix of the
instrumental palette, and this is another area of total failure in
Batman v Superman. There are interesting instrumental ideas in
the work, mainly revolving around solo voices and the trumpet for the
common familial lamentation theme, but they are absolutely buried in an
otherwise overbearing, bass-heavy mix of strings, brass, percussion, and
electronics. Once again, when in doubt, Zimmer addresses the modern
superhero with the bass region, performing his minor-key expressions of
disillusion with thunderous gravity that groans and broods regardless of
whatever good intentions exist in the story. There is no dichotomy in
these alter-ego superhero scores anymore, and much of that issue relates
to these overly dark, oppressive soundtracks that strive harder and
harder to stir the loins of those young male listeners. It's no secret
that Zimmer's film music is the only variety in the genre that receives
humorously ridiculous but strikingly persistent fanboy insistence that
it serves as a cure for erectile dysfunction. It is sad testimony
confirming that the simplicity of the tone that Zimmer, and by
association, all his collaborators supply to these scores is reaching
the lowest common denominator.
Before dispatching the commentary of this review to the
dismay of these testicularly-guided Zimmer enthusiasts, it must also be
stated that
Batman v Superman contains some of Remote Control's
most outrageously heinous sound design since Steve Jablonsky's famously
awful, MRI machine-like
Battleship. There is speculation that
Holkenborg and ghostwriter Andrew Kawczynski were responsible for the
trash in "Must There Be a Superman?" and beyond, but it doesn't matter
in the end who wrote such ear-piercing torture. It's bad enough that so
many of the orchestral sessions in this work have been edited to sound
like 1990's synthetic variants of the same performers. To encounter
blatant effects editing of the variety inhabiting the worst corners of
Batman v Superman is an insulting disappointment. To add even
more misery to the equation with this score is WaterTower Music's album
situation. As per usual, the Zimmer media blitz led to a regular,
72-minute presentation and an expanded "Deluxe" version with an extra 19
minutes. For whatever reason, in that extra 19 minutes are not the
film's melodic highlights missing from the other 72 minutes. Instead you
get three useless ambient cues bracketed by the terrible Doomsday
material in "Blood of My Blood" and more pointless, badly manipulated
action music in "Fight Night" that sounds like a poor imitation of Don
Davis' music from
The Matrix franchise. The expanded version is
thus an absolute waste of money. Along with the other highlights still
missing from the albums is the
Man of Steel sketchbook and
"Launch" material shamelessly tracked into the end credits of
Batman
v Superman. Overall, this is yet another score that was all Zimmer
hype and little in delivered success. Praise him and his team for trying
to infuse some thematic intelligence into this franchise, but the
results are too muddied by the score's haphazard attention span and
gloomy mixing to yield a positive result. After the release of this
score and film, Zimmer claimed publicly that he would retire from the
superhero genre. Given that his best results in the prior ten years came
in dramas and animated children's films, that is a welcome prospect. But
he's "threatened" to retire similarly once before, then going on a tour
and coming back refreshed and ready for the next round of "zimforzando"
superhero pounding on key. There are many listeners awaiting his
rediscovery of the stylish, evocative, and personable music that led to
his success in the 1990's, much of which achieving greatness without the
need for endless ghostwriters who, although fun for him to work with,
usually sully the final product. It's time to hit the "OFF" button on
the remote control.
@Amazon.com: CD or
Download
- Music as Written for the Film: **
- Music as Heard on the Albums: *
- Overall: *
| Bias Check: |
For Hans Zimmer reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 2.86
(in 119 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 2.97
(in 294,647 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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The inserts of both albums include a list of performers. The digipak packaging of the
"Deluxe" edition also contains a miniature poster and an expanded booklet featuring a long
interview with Zimmer and Holkenborg about the process of creating the score.
