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FILMTRACKS.COM
PRINTER-FRIENDLY VIEW 
Review of The Cloverfield Paradox (Bear McCreary)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if the aggressive yet tonal portions of 10 Cloverfield
Lane impressed you, for Bear McCreary has expanded that personality
into an extremely intelligent and surprisingly accessible fantasy score
with a fabulously engaging narrative.
Avoid it... if you prefer simplistic constructs in your film music, this entry containing multiple layers in each major identity to accentuate the story's paradoxes; it will take you a while to unravel these appropriately parallel lines.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
The Cloverfield Paradox: (Bear McCreary) A person
can go mad trying to speculate about the connections between the films
of the Cloverfield franchise, and they're probably not worth the
brain power. What matters is that giant monsters are rampaging across
the planet at different times in modern history, and each loosely
related film gives you more clues as to why. In 2018's The
Cloverfield Paradox, audiences learn that actions involving a
particle accelerator on a space station in Earth's future inadvertently
open a gateway to parallel universes, sending rippling effects through
time and space. The crew of the station is the subject of this film's
main narrative, their horrifying plight reflecting many of the similarly
gruesome fates experienced in 1997's Event Horizon. After the
international crew activates the "Shepard" accelerator in hopes of
generating immense electrical power, they find themselves dragged into
another timeline of Earth in which matter flows in and out of the
universe and, not surprisingly, monsters and death ensue both on the
station and back on Earth in the home universe. As the remaining crew
struggles to reverse the effects, they manage to return home, but to a
vastly changed version of it. While intriguing in basic concept, the
poor script of The Cloverfield Paradox represents a relatively
rare misstep for producer J.J. Abrams. Like its predecessor, 10
Cloverfield Lane, the story was adapted from a standalone project to
suit the Cloverfield universe, so obvious connections between the
films are fleeting and the overarching narrative remains elusive at
best. Complicating this entry was Paramount's sale of the movie to
Netflix in order to break even on it, and the latter company smartly
marketed its online access to the movie to make it temporarily relevant.
For film music enthusiasts, the The Cloverfield Paradox marked
the return of ascendant composer Bear McCreary to a franchise that
helped him break into the mainstream with 10 Cloverfield Lane.
The score for that 2016 film was uniquely smart and worthy of study, its
use of unusual instrumentation (mainly a Turkish yayli tambur for the
lead heroine) giving it a very distinct personality.
McCreary had toiled for years in television and, by the late 2010's, he sought to expand his career into mainstream features to a greater degree. While The Cloverfield Paradox as a career credit isn't as firm a stepping stone along that journey as hoped, it is a solid improvement over 10 Cloverfield Lane and serves as additional proof that the composer is ready for prime time. The two scores don't share obvious melodic connections, but they are definitely joined at the hip due to their common structural and instrumental tendencies. McCreary's brash edge in orchestration and distinctive phrasing of action is quite similar between the two, so much so that even a casual listener may not distinguish them apart. Their main difference comes in the increased strength of thematic development in The Cloverfield Paradox and improved accessibility to the suspense and horror portions. This great presence of tonal appeal makes sense given that the prior movie was a psychologically constricted abduction tale and this entry is a more traditional science-fiction/fantasy story with some horror thrown in along the way. McCreary's instrumental palette remains highly engaging intellectually, his use of strings particularly interesting in this score. The brass presence remains edgy, muted trumpets and ascending low brass phrases carrying over. Woodwind solos, especially in "Launch Sequence," offer more emotional weight. Dull, crashing pianos also return. Choral applications are far more frequent and supply a genuine sense of wonder and empathy to the human element. Various sound effects judiciously aide the score as well, including an electronic pitch-defying tone that mimics the cry of an exotic bird. A flapping wing effect, a descendant of Hans Zimmer's Batman Begins, echoes along with rhythmic movement. A woodblock-like tapping accompanies several cues of mildly panicked perseverance by the crew and, along with the wing effect and other devices, seems to represent a musical acknowledgement by McCreary of the multiple universes at play. These supporting effects sometimes combine with clarity when the crew makes progress in their efforts, the first half of "Magno-Putty" a solid example of this propulsive presence. In the end, it's really the strings that make The Cloverfield Paradox the success that it is, for McCreary uses them in a bevy of ways to denote the march of time, the precision of science, and the emotions of family. The excellent instrumental applications in The Cloverfield Paradox help accentuate McCreary's surprisingly tonal lines of action during all but the most frightening of cues in the middle of the story. A keen sense of rhythm is the prevailing key to success for the composer here, as each of his themes is constructed in such a way as to allow each to overlay another rhythmically as needed. The primary melody isn't even much of a "theme," really, instead presenting itself as something of a counterpoint line within a rhythm. Heard immediately in "Overture" on brutal strings and seemingly synthetically altered bass, the baseline for the theme blasts away until the extremely skittish melody enters in fragments at 0:11 and eventually consolidates into its full form later in the first minute. Each phrase of the churning theme is answered by a difference section of strings, the violins performing one phrase and cellos immediately answering, suggesting the multi-universe aspect of the tale. The theme deconstructs itself by the end of that opening cue, dissolving nicely into mystery. The theme inserts its rhythmic formations into the score's many moments of foreshadowed intrigue, as in the opening of "Converging Overload." It blossoms wonderfully in "Drifting in the Dark," where its menacing presence confirms its role as the score's main horror identity. McCreary's significant exploration of the idea in "Drifting in the Dark" is masterful, especially as the theme's pacing emulates the panic level of the crew and openly interferes and overlaps with those character's tonal interludes of heroism. The theme returns in "Cassiopeia" in much the same role, flutes blurting away with mystery along the way. By the time the crew begins to piece together their circumstances and fight back, the more streamlined suspense and action passages beginning with "Magno-Putty" start utilizing the main theme as a partner motif, even if its skittish progressions above its underlying rhythm remain an alert to danger. The trio of "Spacewalk," "Launch Sequence," and "A Stable Beam" all apply the main theme's rhythm and, in the latter two, the melody itself as a propulsive tool of potential doom. By the climax of "A Stable Beam," the idea has fully merged with the more romantic elements of the score to form a remarkable crescendo of suspense. The first three minutes and final thirty seconds of the suite, "The Cloverfield Paradox," present the score's most flamboyant version of this theme, including some impressively massive interlude passages. The second theme of The Cloverfield Paradox is its lovely respite from the work's constant cortisol dumps, a soothing, highly romantic presence for the British communications officer, Ava, and her relationship with her husband back on Earth. Developed in "Ava and Michael," this material immediately exposes two of its three distinct parts: an ascending, five-note rhythm that ties the romantic identity to the troubling, time-implicating rhythm of the harsh main theme and, over the top, the actual primary melody of the theme at 0:47 on woodwind. This sensitive theme is later supplied to cooing choral shades as the score reaches its pinnacle. A third motific presence within the theme is a seven-note counterpoint line that overlaps both the other two lines, heard initially on cellos at 1:19 into "Ava and Michael." The complexity of all three lines of tonal action at once provides the theme with the intelligent depth that these characters' multiple instances theoretically demand, and it's a pleasure to behold. Any one of these motif within the theme can occur in between moments of suspense, as in the troubled moment of hope at 2:02 during "Cassiopeia," during which two of the theme's three motifs struggle to obtain cohesion. All three parts join together in "A Message for Ava," the score's most hopeful cue, the massive merging of their parts with choir at 4:29 a momentous relief in an otherwise challenging atmosphere. The theme takes a more quietly determined tone early in "Magno-Putty" and "Launch Sequence" before truly dominating "A Stable Beam" with a more optimistic rhythmic punch. As the theme reaches the massive crescendo of grace heard as the surviving astronauts eject themselves back towards Earth, McCreary has fun combining its parts with the main suspense theme (both its underlying rhythm and skittish melody), the volume increasing as Ana's husband reaches his own breaking point in the film's final dialogue. The dichotomy between the beauty of the theme's choral expressions for the station's final exterior shots and the relief of the astronauts, aided by subtle horns in heroic accompaniment, and the increasing fear of Michael on the ground is perfectly captured with a beautiful sense of dread in these final moments, only the main suspense theme's underlying rhythm remaining quietly as we witness what awaits the astronauts. Note McCreary's addition of the ticking percussive effects to the Ava theme during this cue, which, along with the main theme, have all blended together to suggest that there really is no relief from the effects of the mash-up of universes. The closing suite includes a rousing, full-ensemble presentation of the Ava theme as well. The final recurring theme of importance in The Cloverfield Paradox is for the Shepard machine and its effects on reality. There's a sense of giddy scientific exuberance in this idea at the outset, expressed in "Converging Overload" with its fluid violin rhythms at 0:43 joined by the actual theme of wonder at 1:18. This idea takes a quick turn towards dissonant shambles in the cue, not surprisingly, with tortured voices expressing the horrors unleashed by the machine's activation. An even more pronounced presentation of the theme's rhythm explodes at 3:08 into "A Stable Beam," but for this second activation, McCreary unloads a different variation of the brass melody on top at 3:35, perhaps not returning to the exact melody heard in "Converging Overload" as to denote that the astronauts aren't actually restoring the universes back to their prior order. The muted trumpets and anxious strings in this sequence expose the composer's affinity for Bernard Herrmann, and it works here like a charm. McCreary offers a few other interesting cues meant to be unique as to intentionally not connect their structures to the other themes. In "Jensen," he uses the same general chemistry but devises new rhythmic structures and electronic effects, suggesting that she doesn't belong to this universe. Likewise, the cue for "Molly" remains intentionally ambiguous, as Earth's fate remains uncertain, though McCreary touches upon the main suspense theme to suggest that the issues on the surface are related to those on the station. The overall narrative of the music for The Cloverfield Paradox is brilliantly handled by McCreary, and while the listening experience on the long album can be taxing, expect to be actively engaged. Only in the straight horror cues, "In the Wall" and "Mutant Space Worms," does the score devolve into generic fright. A singular, accelerating bass string-led rhythm in "Airlock 6" salvages that cue from monotony, though it's also tough to swallow. A truly exemplary edit of about 40 minutes can be assembled from the 77-minute product. The score's detractions are the aforementioned cues of dissonant chaos, the potential for the tonality of the romantic passages to be too saccharine for some listeners, and a dry mix. While a harsh edge to the ensemble worked in 10 Cloverfield Lane, the enhanced fantasy environment of The Cloverfield Paradox necessitates a touch of added reverb to accompany the universe-shattering implications of the plot and its orbiting location. The sound of the roaring monster from the film at the end of "A Stable Beam" would have been one hell of a great way to conclude the narrative's presentation on album, too. Still, McCreary once again provides music too good for its context, and his future in our universe has never looked more promising.
TRACK LISTINGS:
Total Time: 76:51
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert includes a list of performers, photos from the sessions, and detailed
notes from the composer about the score.
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