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| Lennertz |
Meet the Spartans: (Christopher Lennertz) Every
time you think audiences will tire of ridiculously dumb parodies of pop
culture and other films, yet another entry comes along and earns massive
box office grosses at its debut. Such was the case with
Meet the
Spartans, scrambled to life by the directors and/or writers of
Scary Movie
and
Epic Movie with the cult favorite
300 in its sights.
In this version of the tale, Sparta is represented by 13 disco-dancing
soldiers against the invasion by Xerxes, dispatching doubles for Britney
Spears, George W. Bush, and others while pulling gags inspired by
Transformers,
Spider-Man, and
Ghost Rider.
Predictably, the film was uniformly crucified by the few critics who
were forced by their publications to actually view this trash. But as
long as
Meet the Spartans turned a profit in the absence of
legitimate laughs, who is to say that films like this will ever
thankfully cease to exist? These kinds of throwaway productions are the
last place most film score collectors typically look for decent
underscores, but the task of writing convincing original music for this
variety of venture is arguably more challenging than in its serious
counterparts. Accomplished in such parody scores is Christopher
Lennertz, who approached
Meet the Spartans in a way that Elmer
Bernstein had proven decades before is the best way to enhance the
laughs related to the stupid behavior on screen. By treating
Meet the
Spartans as though it is a completely, deadly serious film, Lennertz
avoids the pitfalls of open parody styles and heightens the sense of
incongruity in the plot's intentional fallacies of logic. Picking up on
his extensive experience working with the late Basil Poledouris,
Lennertz tackled this project as if he were scoring a straight sequel to
Gladiator, though pulling some general inspiration from Tyler
Bates'
300 and others along the way. Because the budget for
Meet the Spartans was obviously restricted, the composer recorded
with the 94-piece Belgrade Film Orchestra and 80-voice choir in Serbia,
but their performances, despite a few issues with the quality of the
recording on album, are in no way lacking.
From wailing female vocals to the usual duduk,
stereotypical elements representing the Middle East are employed to give
the score a sense of antiquity. Not missing the opportunity for a touch
of coolness, though, electric guitars aid the action rhythms in several
places. The scope of the work is massive, and if you didn't know that
this was written for
Meet the Spartans, you could be fooled into
thinking it was for one of Lennertz's video game assignments or even a
feature drama. There is a certain sense of humor in the application of
the grandiose tone throughout
Meet the Spartans. The score is at
times so overwhelmingly heroic or beautiful that you can get the feeling
that something in the equation is awry. Perhaps that sense comes from
the fact that some of the gorgeous female vocals are actually performing
Lennertz's lyrics of "The great hero falls and is asphyxiated by Penguin
testicles" translated into Greek (and yes, it does relate to the action
in the film). The sometimes sudden shifting of style, a frequent
requirement of parody films, can also betray the score's intent. But
otherwise,
Meet the Spartans competes favorably with 2008's most
dramatic action scores. Where it fails in terms of the length of
development in each idea, the score excels in its instrumental
creativity, mostly tonal constructs, and occasionally triumphant
fanfares like the choral and brass outburst in "He's Got a Huge
Package." The large scale expressions of heroics are led by the
monumentally rendered "Land of Sparta," "A King Returns," and "A God
King Falls," each exploding with harmonic resonance that is actually
easier to handle that Bates'
300 (and no, Lennertz doesn't quote
Goldenthal's
Titus, though that would have been highly amusing).
Woven into many of these cues are the stereotypical Arabic chord
progressions, lamenting female vocals, the duduk, and a few percussive
effects that tingle and bang that ethnicity into the work. Not
surprisingly, the ensemble and solo vocals provide the score's most
attractive moments, with "Goodbye, My Queen" following two soft, but
seemingly meaningful explorations of theme on woodwinds and solemn
brass. The weighty string layers of "The Army Assembles" are about as
close as Lennertz comes to Zimmer's brooding mood from
Gladiator.
The vocal sequences are very reminiscent of Nathan Furst's
Dust to
Glory from 2005.
The uninhibited action sequences can be grating in
their flashy personality, utilizing several metallic hits and abrupt
changes in direction, but even in these cues there are entertaining
passages. Lennertz's employment of synthetic elements as sound effects
is perhaps the score's greatest detriment as a listening experience,
though they add another dimension to the music that the electric guitars
cannot alone accomplish. Those guitars are mixed as chugging rhythmic
devices in several cues (including "Cliff Diving" and "Leonidas Steams")
and don't interfere with the orchestral performances in the forefront.
In sum, all of these elements come together with Lennertz's keen sense
of style, forgiving the potentially unrealistic epic qualities by
expressing them with intelligence. Unlike the composer's prior
Comebacks, a sports-related parody,
Meet the Spartans is a
wild ride that may prove too obnoxious in its bloated character for some
listeners. But if you take the circumstances that Lennertz faced with
this production, from the obvious stupidity of the film's haphazard,
shifty plot to the limited budget and the employment of song placements
throughout the narrative, you can't help but admire the resulting score.
Whether you can stomach them or not, there is a place for scores like
Meet the Spartans in the industry, and you really can't ask for a
better product in the genre than what Lennertz has provided.
Understandably, the score was not released on album commercially, though
a 34-minute score-only promotional pressing (which is quite lengthy
given that the film shifts to credits and outtakes a little after an
hour) was circulated on behalf of the composer. Despite less than
perfect sound quality, it was to be expected that the promo has stirred
speculation about why Lennertz's career is seemingly constrained to
video games, television music (where he was nominated for an Emmy), and
films like this and
Alvin and the Chipmunks. This kind of
material is obviously worthy of a better home, and even when taking into
consideration the drawbacks of a lack of continuity inherent in the
juvenile parody genre (including the short cue times), Lennertz's music
for
Meet the Spartans is among the most entertaining of 2008.
While probably a score that will require a certain forgiving mood from
the listener, it is refreshing enough to qualify as the year's most
surprising guilty pleasure.
**** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
The insert includes no extra information about the score or film.
