FILMTRACKS.COM
PRINTER-FRIENDLY VIEW

Review of Fast Five (Brian Tyler)

FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:

Buy it... if you remain enthusiastic about Brian Tyler's previous two hybrid scores for this franchise and are receptive to a complimentary companion that features fewer dynamic highlights but also fewer moments of insufferable noise.

Avoid it... if you have high expectations for Tyler in terms of guiding the concept's music in the direction of the straight action realm, because too much of this score seems like leftovers from the other two to really impress on its own merits.

FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Fast Five: (Brian Tyler) Rarely do you witness a studio attempt to significantly alter the direction of a wildly successful franchise midstream, but Universal decided with its fifth installment in the series of The Fast and the Furious that the time had come to push the concept down a "more serious" path. Despite the phenomenal box office prowess of the franchise over the course of the 2000's, it was seen by studio executives as containing a built-in ceiling, a limit to the breadth of its audience because it was viewed as simply a "car culture" topic. For 2011's Fast Five and beyond, Universal's intent is to shift gears and force the concept into the straight action genre, carefully maintaining the ideas of heists and occasional car chases, but nearly eliminating the street racing emphasis. Even though the earlier movies were rather brainless and didn't really appeal to those who had never been in a car that has spun cookies in an empty parking lot, it's admittedly disappointing to see Hollywood's most famous street racing franchise die in such a manner. But with the addition of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson to the duo of Vin Diesel and Paul Walker, Fast Five is the first embodiment of that new bullet-ridden action focus. Interestingly, this direction seemed to have worked immediately, critical response to Fast Five better than all of its predecessors and grosses blasting through springtime records for all of cinema. Diesel and Walker are once again reunited, following the events of Fast & Furious with escape, chase, and heist sequences that reset at the end (with the help of yet another hidden scene after the credits) in anticipation of the next feature. The location of Fast Five is primarily Rio de Janeiro, and because these films always contain a high number of song placements, that flavor translates into a soundtrack consisting of reggae and Latin music that also inhabits the song compilation album for the movie. The shift in the franchise's emphasis also changes composer Brian Tyler's approach to its original music for this, his third consecutive score for the concept. Not only is his work for a straight action film likely to be longer, but also streamlined in style as well. Although Tyler is more than competent in the conventional action genre, one does have to wonder if he has lost some of his inspiration over the course of his involvement with the franchise due to its shift away from the racing theme. Tyler is himself an avid car and racing enthusiast, both in real life and in the video game realm, and whether or not you find his merging of electronica and orchestral styles palatable, his previous two scores in the series have at least exhibited the hyperactive enthusiasm of a composer having fun in the creative process.

Unfortunately, while Fast Five maintains that same level of frenetic activity, there is an intangible loss in the kind of attitude that gave the other two scores a sharp edge. The most outrageous of the electronic manipulations have been toned back, but so has the dynamic force of the orchestral side. The franchise has never enjoyed particularly consistent thematic continuity, though there is a set of common progressions and underlying chord shifts that Tyler employs throughout all of these scores to join the organic/synthetic blend as a tool for such overarching identity. The "Fast Five" summary track contains the majority of the summarized references to the previous scores' motifs, joined by a descending theme that repeats in "The Vault Heist" and becomes the de facto identity of Fast Five. Additionally, there is the obligatory secondary theme of character interaction for soft acoustic guitar and keyboarding (in this score, these cues are "Paradise" and "Connection"). A bit marginalized is a weak secondary idea for Johnson's enforcement character, defined by an ultra-hard rhythm that repeats nearly all of its notes on key (on electric guitar in "Hobbs" and orchestra in "Hobbs Arrives"). One of the enduring aspects of most of Tyler's motifs for this franchise is the tendency to either pound away on key or stray only a note or two from that key. In the case of the aforementioned primary thematic performances for Fast Five, every chord is repeated in seven-note phrases (sometimes doubled up) to emphasize the progression to the maximum. Repeating the same chord fourteen times in a row doesn't really suggest much intelligence in the music, regardless of how cool the underlying rhythmic movement might be. Also flunking the intellect test is the tired manipulation of organic performances (and synthetic, for that matter) so that they stutter and warp obnoxiously. These techniques are insufferable in "Remote Intel" and "What Time Do They Open?" At some point, there might have been fuller ideas of interest in this score before the editing process butchered them. But, alas, such things denote "coolness" for the target audience and so it's difficult to blame Tyler for taking that route. At least listeners are now spared the wretched 1980's video game sound effects to a greater degree. Like his two previous scores in the series, Fast Five has one very engaging action cue. In this case, at almost ten minutes, "The Vault Heist" contains substantial bravado and a better mix of the opposing styles in the whole. As usual with Tyler, the album presentation is simply way too long to sustain your interest; a 45-minute product would surely suffice for this music. The composer earns his pay with this effort, but it's weaker than the other two and very barely earns a third star. Scale back your expectations, though, and it could compliment the franchise as decent filler of time.  ***

TRACK LISTINGS:

Total Time: 77:52

• 1. Fast Five (3:03) • 2. The Perfect Crew (2:02) • 3. Cristo Redentor (2:40) • 4. Train Heist (8:36) • 5. Remote Intel (2:21) • 6. Hobbs (3:01) • 7. Showdown on the Rio Niteroi (1:37) • 8. Tapping In (1:36) • 9. Turning Point (3:47) • 10. Surveillance Montage (2:28) • 11. Enemy of My Enemy (3:36) • 12. Tego and Rico (2:51) • 13. Hobbs Arrives (1:54)

• 14. Convergence (5:45) • 15. Paradise (1:45) • 16. Finding the Chip (1:07) • 17. What Time Do They Open? (1:35) • 18. Dom vs Hobbs (3:08) • 19. Bus Busting (1:30) • 20. Cheeky Bits (2:40) • 21. The Job (1:37) • 22. Connection (4:23) • 23. The Vault Heist (9:51) • 24. Full Circle (3:29) • 25. Fast Five Coda (0:51)

NOTES & QUOTES:

The insert includes a list of performers, but no extra information about the score or film.

Copyright © 2011-2024, Filmtracks Publications. All rights reserved.
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 Fast Five are Copyright © 2011, Varèse Sarabande and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 5/11/11 (and not updated significantly since).