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FILMTRACKS.COM
PRINTER-FRIENDLY VIEW 
Review of Constantine (Brian Tyler/Klaus Badelt)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you're inspired by large orchestral representations of
the apocalypse, Brian Tyler's subtle thematic sensibilities working both
sides of the good and evil coin in this sonic battle.
Avoid it... if you have always lamented the irritating layering of Klaus Badelt's studio-demanded, synthetic pop style in what could have been a very consistent Tyler score.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Constantine: (Brian Tyler/Klaus Badelt) With the
same restlessness and murky surroundings as in The Matrix
franchise, newly crowned future fantasy star and former devil's advocate
Keanu Reeves leaves behind his theoretical battle with the machines for
an immediate wrestling match at the border between reality and the
various layers of Hell in Constantine. Based on the DC/Vertigo
comic book "Hellblazer" by Jamie Delano & Garth Ennis, the film raises
all the grandeur of Hell in an attempt to blow you away with visual
style and pulp dialogue which, of course, is not adverse to a whole lot
of biblical verse. Throw in a female cop, a Catholic or two, and a
recently discovered archeological spear that could have serious
implications for mankind, and you get the basic players of
Constantine. The film debuted to a wild variety of response, with
fans of the morose qualities of Blade and Hellraiser
treated to a product with the flash of Van Helsing and the
strangely optimistic humor of Hellboy. Some may call the biblical
mysteries at the heart of the story preposterous, and many critics stood
on that argument alone to blast the film, but people who dig projects
like End of Days can at least revel in the film's ambience. One
of the more troubled elements of the sensory appeal of
Constantine has been the score by composer Brian Tyler who, by no
coincidence, spent much of his young career toiling in the horror and
thriller genres of film. After a reported combination of disgruntled
executive and test screening responses to Constantine, the studio
decided that Tyler's brooding, large-scale orchestral score lacked the
pop and style that may have been underplayed in the film. Despite
Tyler's continued attempts to meet the revised demands, the studio hired
Media Ventures offspring Klaus Badelt, who was responsible (along with
the usual team of assistants and ghostwriters from Hans Zimmer's music
factory) for "enhancing" Tyler's music rather than replace it. Although
Tyler confessed to being exhausted with the project by that point,
stating his satisfaction with the darker, thoughtful score he had
painstakingly penned, he claims to have worked closely with Badelt to
yield the finished product heard in the film. Time was short by the late
hour when Badelt entered the scene, so you end up with a rare
circumstance in which the new composer simply overlays his music over
the first composer's cues, with Tyler in this case even credited for
conducting the whole of the finished score.
The resulting score in Constantine is, as you'd expect, rather unbalanced. Tyler's effort could conceivably be considered too conservative and predictable in its similarity to John Debney's End of Days. Both works explore the demon worlds with bass-heavy orchestral and choral moodiness and rare interludes of thematic beauty on a small scale to represent the one's battle against the evil masses. Roughly half of Tyler's material does dwell upon the eerie atmosphere of the film, with extended cues of disjointed thematic and key-defying contemplation. If you accept the film as existing in either the horrific action or biblical conversation modes, then you can expect Tyler's score to kick it into gear at any time and explode from that atmospheric tone into striking ruckus with no warning. And that he does, with several cues of heart-pounding, thunderous orchestral bombast. On the score's album presentation, the first third of the cues largely rumble and tease, with Tyler's truly interesting work finally revealing itself in "I Left Her Alone" and the several cues that follow in the middle portions of that product. A basic main theme is heard in "Destiny," "Counterweight," and "Circle of Hell," offering the bass strings a simple progression with which to stew. More intriguing thematic development occurs in the aforementioned "I Left Her Alone" and "Humanity," with the composer giving some hope of redemption to the title character in his eloquent and yearning piano and string piece, "John." These six minutes represent some of Tyler's most authentic career character development, abandoning the all-too-friendly and contemporary progressions of Children of Dune and Paparazzi. The application of a duduk to some of these sequences (and "Humanity" in particular) gives the score a worldly tone that also suits an ancient religious battle well. While the restrained but beautiful interludes into sensitivity seem unlikely after the early portions of the score, it is their heartening presence that will either create more interest for you in the whole or perhaps too greatly exaggerate the difference between the best of Tyler's work and Badelt's less pleasantly-influenced cues. On the action front, however, Tyler really does impress with two lofty cues in particular; in "Circle of Hell" and "Flight to Ravenscar," he references a technique from Debney's End of Days in which a pounding bass drum or timpani blasts a rhythm at a slowly accelerating pace with the weight of the full ensemble above that propulsion. It's certainly an effective method of building to a crescendo in this, the ultimate of Hell-fearing environments. When it came time to rework some of Tyler's music for Constantine, the mass of his best material was luckily retained. Some fans may raise flippant remarks about the tables being turned on Tyler after he replaced Jerry Goldsmith on what would have been the composer's final solo score, but the situation is significantly different here. When Badelt arrived with the "license to electrify," he largely maintained the thematic and rhythmic structure of Tyler's work. Thus, you hear Badelt's predictable style of music typically placed directly over background orchestral material that sounds, if you attempt to ignore the electronics, as though it was originally (and logically) very consistent in instrumentation with the rest of Tyler's work. The only highlight of Badelt's contribution to Constantine is arguably some of the placement of the standard Media Ventures electric cello, an instrument that raises memories of The Replacement Killers in the way that it sort of meanders at its higher ranges in the background, but also one that strangely mirrors Tyler's duduk in suiting the film's topic well. Given that the movie depicts a battle between God and Satan, it may have made sense to have an orchestral score led by a gorgeous piano for the title character fight the evil forces of synthesized distortion directly within the music itself. In the final third of the album, Badelt's influence does, however, cross over into the realm of the obnoxious. After serving in an auxiliary role in "Meet John Constantine," "Last Rites," and "Hell Freeway," the layers of muck from Badelt and his team do become outrageously unnecessary. The screeching "Ether Surfing" cue is only surpassed in its capability to annoy by the "End Titles," in which Badelt's presence seemingly handed over the scoring duties to a high school garage band. On the whole, the album begins slowly, mesmerizes you in its middle sections, and then ends horribly. While Badelt's involvement may very well have improved the pop appeal within the context of the film, it causes significant detriment to the album experience. Tyler's work alone, which included a very impressive opening title sequence before being cut entirely from the film, would likely be an impressive listening experience, and some fans have availed themselves of this material in bootleg form. But along with the Badelt infiltration of juxtaposed style comes an inconsistency in gain control on the commercial album that causes a cue such as "John" to potentially be lost. Overall, Tyler's music is nothing earth-shattering, but it's certainly intriguingly satisfying and would have translated much better onto album without the additions of Badelt's rather cheapening contemporary influences. ***
TRACK LISTINGS:
Total Time: 51:42
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert includes an extensive list of performers but no
extra information about the score or film.
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The reviews and other textual content contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Christian Clemmensen at Filmtracks Publications. All artwork and sound clips from Constantine are Copyright © 2005, Varèse Sarabande and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 2/18/05 and last updated 10/11/11. |
