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Review of The Last Legion (Patrick Doyle)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you seek inspiration from Patrick Doyle's most robust
and consistently heroic action mode of the mid-2000's, an immense
streamlining of the composer's own stylistic tendencies on a grand
scale.
Avoid it... if your appreciation of Doyle's music is attached to his typically intelligent structural applications, a habit not indulged to a great degree in this rather brutish expression of grandeur.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
The Last Legion: (Patrick Doyle) The idea of
overlapping the fall of the Roman Empire with Arthurian legends raises
all sorts of questions about historical accuracies, but it nevertheless
promised to make for an interesting action/fantasy movie. Unfortunately,
Doug Lefler's liberal 2007 adaptation of a 2003 Italian novel was so
poorly conceived that The Last Legion failed to earn back its own
budget despite restraining its costs rather well during production.
While intrigue certainly exists in the combination of Merlin, Arthur,
and the final Roman Emperor and the descendents of Julius Caesar, there
are so many outrageous fallacies in the historical depictions within
The Last Legion, some of them off by a whopping thousand years,
that it becomes an embarrassingly laughable spectacle of cheap trash. In
5th Century Europe, the Roman Empire is collapsing and child Emperor
Romulus is banished into exile. With the help of Merlin, he seeks refuge
in Britain. There, he encounters the "last legion" of Roman soldiers who
inevitably support him against the local warlords who ally themselves
with the Goth rulers of Rome. The Excalibur sword is crucial to winning
this fight, and the end of the film portrays the events that lead up to
the sword's embedding in a rock and a young Arthur's realization that he
is tied to Roman lineage. The production took the easier route in its
application of historical stereotypes to costumes and settings, the
armor and architecture seen on screen completely inappropriate for the
era. Applied with equally broad strokes is Patrick Doyle's score, one
that caters to generalized conceptions of the brash, heroically
monumental music one would expect for a tale merging Rome and Arthur.
Doyle was on a fantasy and action kick in the mid-2000's, having
successfully provided rousing symphonic scores for Harry Potter and
the Goblet of Fire and Eragon. These works, while ranging
from mildly entertaining for some Doyle collectors to a pinnacle of
success for others, represented a period during which the composer was
still infusing his own stylistic mannerisms solely upon his major
projects. As such, there is more than a hint of the grandiose
melodramatic lyricism dating back to Doyle's days as Kenneth Branagh's
writer of choice for his Shakespearean scores. In the most positively
upbeat portions, lively spirit from Much Ado About Nothing can be
heard. Absent at this point in his career was Doyle's eventually
successful incorporation of modern American blockbuster sensibilities
into his style that would yield Thor and Rise of the Planet of
the Apes, a tremendous pair of successful genre scores in 2011. In
this regard, The Last Legion is the final entry in the
development of Doyle's original action mode.
Bravado is certainly not lacking in Doyle's approach to The Last Legion. If anything, the constant full ensemble lyricism of glorious heroism is so saturating that it becomes tiresome after the first half of the score, but the composer definitely sounds as though he was compensating for whatever underwhelming production elements plagued other aspects of the movie. The London Symphony Orchestra doesn't really exercise their talents in ways that tax the players' capabilities, but their inherent immensity is the focus of attention. Even when the group isn't marching through one of the score's major themes, the ensemble rumbles with constantly bloated reminders of its depth. Snare drums rip, timpani pound out rhythms, cymbals crash at every measure, trumpets blast through figures on key, and high strings blow wildly through the wind as lower brass enunciate the thematic identities. Choral shades are equally impressive, seemingly emulating the richly textured adult tones in Howard Shore's The Lord of the Rings masterpieces. Specialty instruments are minimal if ever truly impactful; the orchestra is so overwhelming in its force that only a handful of violin solos break through. Thematically, Doyle does manage to avoid the monothematic nature of Eragon, instead creating clear identities for the heroes and villains. The former is a stately idea heard in "Sacred Pentangle" and "Coronation" that features an interlude sequence that seems to address the mystique of the Arthurian half of the tale. Interestingly, while there are certainly primary phrases in the theme that resemble Doyle's past melodies, the interlude has more than the usual amount of Mark McKenzie personality, perhaps indicating that the director temp tracked the film with music from Dragonheart: A New Beginning, his prior major project. Listen to the violin solo portion of this theme at 3:10 into "No More War" to hear similarities to McKenzie's theme for magical Druid elements in Warlock: The Armageddon. The antagonists' material in The Last Legion evolves from the bold descending theme in "Goths Sieze Rome" to the more deliberately stomping alternative culminating in "Death of Vortgyn." It doesn't contrast itself particularly well from the heroic side of the score because Doyle never really alters the instrumentation with enough menace in the dark half of the score to give much narrative variance. Therein lies the greatest weakness of The Last Legion. A few jaunty rhythmic sequences in "Escape From Capri" and "Sword Play Romance" break the flow of the album in ways that are refreshing but a tad jarring. Otherwise, it is pedal to the metal action immensity that is entertaining for casual inspiration but not particularly interesting on a technical level. It is Doyle's most ambitious "sonic wallpaper" approach to the genre, and don't expect his usual stylistic intelligence to prevail, but its forward nobility will keep you engaged. ****
TRACK LISTINGS:
Total Time: 51:19
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert includes no extra information about the score or film.
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