: (Thomas Wanker/Harald Kloser) Even when
major studios all start rejecting the insane disaster ideas of filmmaker
Roland Emmerich, independent production companies will still fund his
spectacles of mass-destruction. One has to wonder if Emmerich has a
purely spiteful relationship with the Earth, as he has fallen in love
with pondering and executing depictions of its annihilation from a
variety of maladies. In 2022's
, Emmerich postulates that
the planet's moon is actually hollow and contains a white star at its
center that is being attacked by creatures that have long been at war
with the moon's creators, who turn out to be an ancient civilization
from Earth. Of course, the problems on the moon cause it to hurl towards
Earth and trigger extraordinary death and property damage. The hero of
the story is a doomsday conspiracy theorist, turning
into a feeding frenzy for asinine, conservative conspiracy theories in
real life. One can only hope that Halle Berry's payday for her lead role
was significant; the soundly panned movie stands among the most
expensive, independently funded films of all time. Aggressive
advertising blitzes for
couldn't buy it love from
audiences, however, its box office returns even failing to surpass the
concurrent sequel in the
franchise. Emmerich's
co-producer and co-writer for these wretched ventures has often been
Harald Kloser, who also took compositional duties from David Arnold for
Emmerich in the early 2000's. About ten years later, fellow Austrian
composer Thomas Wanker, who changed his named to "Wander" after moving
to America, started receiving primary credit for the scores co-written
with Kloser (and others). Their output has been about as impressive as
the films they write music for, the music often residing between two and
three stars in quality and offering a few simplistic highlights among an
excess of functionally generic contributions. The result of Wanker and
Kloser's toil for
falls squarely within those
reputational boundaries, the score always sufficient but rather
anonymous and vaguely reminding you of temp-track inspirations.
While there are hints of references to the music of
David Arnold, Hans Zimmer, and Harry Gregson-Williams to be heard in
Moonfall, there is a significant enough history with Wanker and
Kloser to point back to their own past as well, as nondescript as that
may be. At its best, this score accesses the dramatism of
The Day
After Tomorrow and tonal pleasantness of
10,000 B.C.. At its
worst, it pulls tired action from
Independence Day: Resurgence
and
White House Down. But perhaps the sufficiently bland
2012 is the best comparison. The composers provide a decently
orchestral score with tasteful touches of electronics and vocal tones,
the ambience almost always tonally accessible and grating dissonance
held to just a few moments. There's nothing wrong with the ensemble or
layered effects; everything about the music for
Moonfall is
reasonably produced. There is a handful of motific variants that meander
through the score, culminating in a heroically pretty summation at the
end. Concepts related to ancient civilizations and bizarre technologies
are afforded the electronic and choral shades in appropriate doses. But
the score manages to make a lot of noise without really accomplishing
anything greater, the most common criticism of Wanker and Kloser's
careers to date. Their inability to generate dynamic themes and state
them in satisfying evolutionary development in a score continues to hold
them back,
Moonfall generating a few really basic ideas that
aren't strong enough to provide true definition to the work. The main
theme of the score is for both redemption and the conspiracy theorist
character, its very simple and generic ascending phrasing akin to the
mundane drama of
The Day After Tomorrow. The idea is urgent on
strings at 0:26 into "I Made Them Listen," achieves slight, mystical
ambience at 0:26 into "Inside the Moon," roars in full action mode at
0:22 into "Ludicrous Mode," and shifts to stomping suspense in the
latter half of "Oxygen." It's in "KC Saves the World" where this idea
finally takes flight, low string drama at 0:36 and 1:48 building to a
massive choral and brass rendition at 2:22. After exploring its loud
fantasy capabilities at 0:54 into "Leap of Faith," the theme dominates
the compelling "Moonfall End Theme" at 0:48 and 2:25.
The phrasing of the main theme in
Moonfall is so
basic that several variants seem to stem from it without serving a
separate purpose particularly well. A heroic variant is heard throughout
the second half of "Time to Go" and most of "Suit Up" in pleasant but
not exciting renditions, though the composers succeed better at this
task in the middle of "Into the Moon." An auxiliary wonder motif that
sounds like an orphaned piece of counterpoint is offered at 0:28 into
"The Code of Life" and at 1:55 and 2:54 into "Moonfall End Theme," the
last of which conveyed on solo brass with some distinction. Even more
nebulous is Wanker and Kloser's handling of the alien-like presence,
their "ancient truth" motif never congealing in satisfactory fashion.
This electronic fantasy ambience is teased at start of "Megastructures,"
extends its mystery at 0:26 into "Trending," and develops more fully at
0:42 into "Into the Moon." It achieves a decent sense of anticipation in
the middle of "Join the Fight," enjoys a brief majestic moment at 0:44
into "Save the Moon," and hints at a continuation of the story at 0:43
into "Get Started," by which time it sounds like a leftover from Dennis
McCarthy's
Star Trek: Generations. In the end, these themes have
not the strength to maintain an adequate narrative in the score, though
each individual cue is competent enough to generate the right mood. Like
other Kloser and Wanker scores,
Moonfall has five to ten minutes
of material worthy of a compilation of their best music, and in this
case, the cues to remember are "Into the Moon," "The Code of Life," and
"Moonfall End Theme." Some listeners might throw "KC Saves the World"
into that mix as well. The "The Code of Life" cue is a bit frustrating
in that it explores solid ideas not heard elsewhere in the score,
striving to emulate Arnold's beefier music in that one instance.
Definitely to be skipped is Luka Kloser's disconnected end credits song,
"One More Time." Being the daughter of Harald Kloser certainly has its
benefits for her, but her obnoxious song is to the detriment of this
movie. A reasonably paced, 53-minute score presentation on album is
rarely annoying (even the string suspense effects of "Rising Tide" are
somewhat interesting despite their challenges), but it won't leave a
tune in your memory and may struggle to yield an engrossing fantasy
mood. Beware of ultra-long fade-outs on many tracks. The composers'
predictable proficiency once again scrapes a third star from an
experience that will underwhelm many listeners.
*** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
| Bias Check: |
For Harald Kloser reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 2.56
(in 9 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 2.54
(in 3,748 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
|
