Blue Beetle: (Bobby Krlic) Among the countless
superhero spinoffs seeking hefty monetary gains for its studios, DC
Comics character Blue Beetle receives his cinematic origins story in
2023. Largely disconnected from the rest of the universe on screen,
Blue Beetle shows how a typical Latino family can be upended by
the transformation of Jaime Reyes into Blue Beetle after an "unlikely"
series of events that begins in Antarctica, where evil, corporate scum
plunder an ancient alien artifact that can merge with a human host to
yield superpowers. Naturally, the artifact ends up in a Big Belly Burger
to-go box and, much to the consternation of Susan Sarandon as the
baddie, Jamie and his family discover a new calling. As predictable,
there previously had been another Blue Beetle in the family of the
villain, and the search continues for what happened to that poor
bastard. With its Spanglish tilt and somewhat retro styling at times,
Blue Beetle promised more originality than it delivered,
generating moderately warm critical and audience responses but failing
to really catch on. One of the more intriguing aspects of the film was
the hiring of British musician Bobby Krlic, better known as his stage
name, The Haxan Cloak, for original score duties. While Krlic had
produced a number of film, television, and video game scores over the
previous ten years, he had been best known for his 2019 work for
Midsommar, which featured some intriguingly dramatic horror
highlights. Krlic's style is generally acoustic but darkly brooding and
atonal, and expectations were high that he could meld his instrumental
sound design tendencies with a touch of Hispanic flair for
Blue
Beetle. That sadly did not happen, though, with the composer's
strategy instead relying heavily upon aspects of grunge and electronic
dance music as infusions into 1980's synthetic and orchestral blends,
most of it deeply manipulated and dissonant. Krlic's attempt at a
superhero score may have been guided by the same desire that sank Trent
Reznor and Atticus Ross' concurrent
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:
Mutant Mayhem; the stylish vigor and authenticity of Daniel
Pemberton's
Spider-Verse music is proving challenging for others
to emulate.
Film scores rarely achieve such horrendous levels of
wretchedness that they encourage animal testing, but Krlic's
Blue
Beetle merited such expenditure. Testing on random human subjects is
too difficult when factoring the legal waivers necessary to gauge mental
trauma caused by terrible sounds. Instead, with the generous donations
of Filmtracks readers, the effects of this score were studied on a
354-kilogram (780-pound), male Ursus arctos horribilis, a grizzly bear.
The specimen was captured in the Mission Mountains of Western Montana
and taken to a special sound room for large animals in the nearby town of
Seeley Lake. The 9 x 9-meter room in Filmtracks' laboratory is protected
by synthetic plastic polymer wall sheeting on metal studs, and it is
equipped with 16 Klipsch Heresy IV speakers embedded within protective
wire screens to achieve immersive sound for use on the animal. On one
wall of the room is a powered, 1992 Dixie Narco vending machine with
common human snacks. Standing in the corners of this room are four
full-height Bonaveri human mannequins of plastic and rubber, each filled
with fluid sacks of non-sweetened, fake human blood that are designed to
spray under pressure upon puncture. These mannequins are also plumbed
with a spritz mechanism to exude individual scents. The first mannequin
is scented with an expensive French perfume, Baccarat Rouge 540 Extrait
de Parfum. The second is scented to mimic the aroma of a pine tree, with
resin consisting of turpentine and a rosin common to the Ponderosa
species. The third mannequin emits the scent of foul human underarm body
odor that consists of hydroxylated branched fatty acids with
E-3-methylhex-2-enoic acid and 3-hydroxy-3-methylhexanoic acid,
sulfanylalkanols and 3-methyl-3-sulfanylhexan-1-ol, and the steroid
hormones androstenone (5a-androst-16-en-3-one) and androstenol
(5a-androst-16-en-3a-ol). Finally, the fourth mannequin exudes the smell
of a Burger King Whopper, a human hamburger delicacy since 1957. Each
mannequin also contains a speaker in its head to play human voices. When
approached by the animal, a mannequin will speak: "Hello, my name is
Donald J. Trump. The election was stolen from me." If the mannequin is
attacked, the speaker will instead say, "Lord Jesus, save me from the
beast!" repeatedly for the duration of the assualt or until the speaker
or its battery pack is destroyed.
The grizzly bear was delivered to the Filmtracks
laboratory sound room in a sedated condition. Upon rousing, the bear
initially paced in a circular path in middle of the room, surveying its
surroundings and sniffing at each scent but reluctant to engage despite
showing repeated interest in the Whopper mannequin and vending machine.
As a control film score, Filmtracks' wildlife biologists played the
entirety of Rachel Portman's
Godmothered score to observe the
animal's reaction to a pleasantly neutral soundtrack at normal volumes.
The Portman music lulled the bear into a calm, motionless position as it
acclimated to the unoffensive sound. With no pause in between the film
scores, staff began playing Krlic's
Blue Beetle music.
Immediately, the specimen became agitated during "The Sphere," a cue
defined by atrocious electronic rhythms and oddly jungle atmosphere on
percussion despite the Antarctic setting of its scene. Within three
minutes of this maddening dissonant manipulation, the bear charged and
mauled the mannequin exuding the Whopper scent. The intensity of the
attack was surprising; the approach was so fast that the introductory
line was cut off at "Hello, my name is Donald J." before the panic
statement, "Lord Jesus, save me from the beast!," was repeated fully
only once prior to dismemberment and silencing. Blood from the mannequin
sprayed further than expected, covering not only the bear's head and
torso but splattering significant volume across the 12-foot-high ceiling
as well. During the surprisingly nondescript ambience and total lack of
theme in the villain music of "Victoria Kord," the bear retreated into
the corner where it had eviscerated the Whopper mannequin. Krlic's
thematic handling in the score is especially disappointing, the composer
making no attempt to provide any identity to the villains in theme or
even instrumental technique. He does, however, employ the Hans Zimmer
foghorn brass sound frequently, often to the consternation of
the bear. It was reinvigorated by the wildly keyboarded chaos at the end of
"Stealing the Scarab" and, in response to the cheesy 1980's synthetic
heroism in "The Transformation," the bear stood on its hind quarters
and let out quick roar. While Krlic means well with the shift to the
major key in this self-discovery cue, as it at least inspired the bear
to a moment of good cheer, the tone of his electronics is so ridiculous
that you forget there are real orchestral players toiling in the
background.
Krlic offers little creativity in his music for
Blue
Beetle, but among his more interesting, if not still intolerable
ideas is the application of an accelerating tone to represent flapping
insect wings in "Stratosphere Flight." The hideous electronic action in
this cue, highlighted by a terrible counterpoint technique of two
harshly descending notes early, caused the bear to aggressively pace
about the room again, though the clunky percussive nothingness of "Jaime
Wakes Up" made it retreat to destroyed Whopper mannequin's corner once
more. This weird percussive rambling in "Jaime wakes Up" represents a
significant missed opportunity for Krlic to provide some Hispanic flavor
to the score. (The acoustic guitar intrusion early in "Nana's Theme" is
the only slight hint of such a technique.) The pounding-on-key action in
"Kord Tower Fight" compelled the bear to approach the human body odor
mannequin slowly enough for it to achieve the spoken line, "The election
was stolen from me." During the slamming orchestral hits on key in the
final minute of that cue, the bear forcibly removed both legs of the
mannequin while striking the upper body into the walls. Since the animal
did not completely dislodge the head, the false human continued to state
"Lord Jesus, save me from the beast!" during the first of the ten
generic, wasted minutes between "Ted Kord's Lair" and "Before the
Raid," though excessive licking and chewing of the apparatus eventually caused it
to go silent. The bear alerted upwards to take notice of Krlic's main
theme to
Blue Beetle only once it was fully introduced in
"Manifest Fight" and "Reyes House Attack." Built from three-note
phrasing, this idea is often conveyed on a distorted brass-like effect,
but that rendering can't mask the annoying tendency of the idea to
remind listeners of John Williams' famous "Imperial March" from
Star
Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. A single phrase of the theme had
emerged at 0:15 into "The Sphere" and 3:19 into "Kord Tower Fight," but
the longer, somewhat heroic statement at 0:21 into "Manifest Fight,"
while a bit tepid on brass, did make the bear start clawing at the
walls. The animal's behavior intensified as Krlic applies the theme
(with secondary phrasing) over extraordinarily obnoxious wobbling synth
effects at 1:43 into "Reyes House Attack." Some of that aggression from
the bear was diminished during the slightly tonal keyboard washes of
"Heart Attack," a cue with none of the dramatic punch necessary for the
emotionally impactful scene.
After lumbering in circles during the pulsating
electronics in the latter half of "Activating the Bug Ship," the bear
could not resist mauling the pine tree mannequin midway through the
thumping, dreadful action of "Bug Ship to the Island." As the victim
exclaimed an abbreviated, "Lord Jesus!," the attacker received another
unexpectedly large explosion of fake blood in its face, causing the
animal to halt its maiming during the mind-numbing pulsations and
pitch-meandering of "Leaving the Bug Ship." It stopped and rose to its
hind legs again in middle of the room during "The Cosmic Realm," during
which Krlic shifts his main theme to the major key one more time on
retro synthetics late. This mildly optimistic cue inspired the bear to
playful interactions with the vending machine, chewing on the sides of
the glass door. The slashing crescendo of "Rebooting" encouraged the
bear, however, to outright thrash the vending machine, pausing its
attack during "Nana's Theme" in apparent confusion caused by the sudden
presence of acoustic guitar. The bear successfully tipped over the
vending machine onto itself during "Blue Beetle vs Carapax Pt 1" but
repelled the weight. Krlic's poorly manipulated imitation of Rob
Dougan's popular "Clubbed to Death" from
The Matrix on grinding
electric guitar in "Blue Beetle vs Carapax Pt 2" urged the animal to
smash the front glass of the machine. Rather than pillaging its contents
right away, the disruptive action music compelled the bear to continue
destroying the machine's internal parts rather than feasting on its
food. The dull, boring keyboarding in "Sacrifices for the Greater
Good" and "Now We Can Cry" were a marginally soothing influence on the
specimen, affording the bear time to enjoy various flavors of Lays potato
chips while groaning with delight. The moment of triumph for the bear
was rudely interrupted by Krlic's jarring "Blue Beetle Suite" summary of
the main theme. That idea had been totally absent from the second half
of the score without good reason, but it occupies most of "Blue Beetle
Suite" and receives much of its development there. Unfortunately, also
returning is the horrific two-note descending counterpoint line early
and late in the cue, the deafening siren-like noise disqualifying the
whole performance from tolerance by man and beast. This track caused the
bear extreme irritation. It defecated, tore a hole in the exterior wall,
and escaped into the town, carrying two bags of snacks and the right arm
of the Whopper mannequin in its mouth as it fled the echoes of Krlic's
music.
Upon detailed analysis of the grizzly bear's reaction
to the Krlic score for
Blue Beetle, the Filmtracks team of
wildlife biologists and animal behavior experts made several definitive
determinations. First, compared to the control score, music from
Blue
Beetle caused the bear to exhibit obvious stress via symptoms of
irritation, aggression, and violence. The composer's shrill, dissonant
electronic noises, coupled with poorly rendered orchestral
accompaniment, yielded discomfort in each instance. The bear lost
interest in attacking symbols of humanity when the music shifted into
its many sequences of nondescript, atmospheric noise, however. The staff
consensus points to a hypothesis that a direct correlation exists
between terrible, discordant film music and vicious bear behavior, the
animal more likely to maim and kill humans and their food-dispensing
machinery in response to such degenerate aural stimulation. Second, the
consistently aggravating nature of the
Blue Beetle score caused
several explosively quick episodes of animal violence, with no delayed
reactions. Espousing no depth of character or emotion in the music, and
with little narrative development to generate a longer-term
cardiovascular response in the bear, the brutal results were almost
immediate and severe. Third, the mannequin spritzing the Baccarat Rouge
540 Extrait de Parfum was left untouched, suggesting possible use of the
perfume as a bear repellant for humans. Fourth, neither saying "Hello,
my name is Donald J. Trump. The election was stolen from me" nor "Lord
Jesus, save me from the beast!" resulted in any delay or reduction of
force in the bear attacks on the mannequins. Fifth, when selecting food
from a damaged vending machine, the bear preferred products supplied by
Frito-Lay, a subsidiary of PepsiCo, Inc.; it declined to consume
products supplied by Kettle Foods, which is owned by the Campbell Soup
Company. Sixth, grizzly bears may show preference for Burger King
Whoppers over human flesh. Also noted is that the bear in this study
escaped prior to two retro-styled, Spanish-language covers of favorite
old songs that conclude the album release. For future experiments, the
team recommends that the grizzly bear specimen be exposed to James
Horner's
Legends of the Fall instead. In conclusion, all
behavioral scientists involved in this study concur that broadcasting
Krlic's appalling score for
Blue Beetle in the wilds of Montana
could cause increased bear attacks on small towns rather than scare the
bears further into the woods. Future use of
Blue Beetle music is
not recommended.
FRISBEE @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
There exists no official packaging for this album.
