Filmtracks Traffic Rank: #1,931
Written 10/26/18
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Buy it... if you approach this marginally entertaining score with
lowered expectations, Harry Gregson-Williams supplying some surprisingly
engaging ethnicity and tonality to this otherwise formula equation.
Avoid it... if you demand a monster or superhero-worthy power
anthem to accompany the story's battle of oversized character egos, the
themes of this score sufficient and at times impressive but not leaving
a lasting impact.
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Gregson-
Williams |
The Meg: (Harry Gregson-Williams) There's only so
much a movie can accomplish with a shark as its villain (until the day
sharks can fly!), and many of the alternatives already spoken for on the
big screen, 2018's The Meg, the highly sought adaptation of the
studio-bait novel, decided to make the beast really, really big. With a
bit of prehistoric mythos owing to Japanese monster films, the topic
postulates that accidental human activity deep in the Western Pacific
Ocean (in this case, the attempted rescue of a floundering submarine)
releases the largest shark ever suspected of existing into the open
waters. Naturally, it battles the pesky human researchers it encounters
and eventually makes its way to a beach where vacationing civilians
await their sorry fate. Ball-busting action star Jason Statham applies
his fists symbolically to the monster, of course, allowing for solid box
office performance. The problem with The Meg, however, is that
it's not scary or gory enough to satisfy adults and too frightening for
children, so it's ultimately not particularly satisfying or memorable
for anyone. Any shark-related film in which too many minor characters
survive is destined for disappointment, and a monster of Megalodon size
needs to consume more amusing targets than shown. Director Jon
Turteltaub was realistic about one aspect of his production, though, and
that was the original score. Having collaborated with Hans Zimmer and
associates throughout his career, he turned to early Zimmer enterprises
graduate Harry Gregson-Williams for The Meg, and he made it clear
to the composer that no emulation of John Williams' famous Jaws
music was to be attempted. This is, after all, more of a monster action
flick than a straight horror one, and Gregson-Williams approached it as
such. While the orchestral and synthetic blend that the veteran uses for
this occasion is pretty much rendered as expected, he does incorporate
more than a small touch of Chinese sensibility into his equation. This
ethnic influence provides most of the score's attractive moments and
owes to the film's location (a Chinese resort is the location of the
attack late in the film) and its Chinese production backers. The
composer's merging of Eastern woodwinds and percussion with bass-heavy
orchestra and electronics serves well enough; the resulting action blend
resorts to typical, thrashing action of a synthetic tilt in some
passages but manages to infuse enough character into the subject to keep
the score more interesting than Gregson-Williams' concurrent and rather
pointless The Equalizer 2.
There is rarely a moment in
The Meg during which
Gregson-Williams doesn't employ some kind of droning synthetic element
on key. Such is the nature of the universe during this era of music. But
he adds a variety of interesting sonic coloration above those standard
tones to retain interest, starting the orchestral players but really
shining with the ethnic Chinese percussion he imported for the
recording. A choral layer is applied sparingly but often supplies the
fantasy angle. Unfortunately, listeners expecting to hear a reprise of
the power anthem wonderment from Trevor Rabin's
Deep Blue Sea
will be disappointed by Gregson-Williams' less obvious approach to this
assignment. The major fantasy statements of the score's most accessible
main theme, as at 0:44 into "Prehistoric Species," are more restrained
in their glory. The composer assigns an interesting dichotomy to the two
main thematic representations, utilizing similar structures for the
shark and human themes but reversing their intervals. The identity for
the humans is a bit wishy-washy, developing out of the pleasantry of
"Mana One" and "A New World" before taking a militaristic stance early
in "Even the Score" and bubbling along in "You Saved Me," "Dr. Zhang,"
and "We Have a Plan." This often lovely material culminates in the
opening of "To Our Friends\ with the choir and magnificent brass
interlude in tow. These soft and surprisingly engaging passages could be
combined into a ten-minute suite of top Gregson-Williams sentimentality,
and their Chinese influences stirred the imaginations of listeners hyped
about the composer's assignment to the later live-action adaption of
Disney's
Mulan. The theme for the shark in
The Meg,
however, is more relevant to the score, and you hear its menacing
presence almost immediately on bass strings in "Sub Disaster" and in
fragmented forms throughout the score. Its moment of climax arguably
emerges at 1:39 into "Beach Attack," when the audience receives its
payoff in the form of a near
Godzilla-like brass pronouncement of
the idea. Gregson-Williams obliges listeners with this theme, even if
just a three-note portion featuring its memorable descending interval,
during countless appearances of the beast, and he is sure to include it
in the suite-like "To Our Friends" at the end. In sum,
The Meg
strikes you as a score that is far more entertaining than it needed to
be, though it won't last very long in memory anyway. The digital-only
release includes no high-resolution download option, a sorry shame given
the recording's dynamic specialty instruments. Still, if you can forgive
the anonymous action and underplayed theme for the humans, there's a
decent amount of material to appreciate in this competent work.
*** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
Bias Check:
For Harry Gregson-Williams reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3
(in 40 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 2.99
(in 55,272 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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