The Old Guard: (Volker Bertelmann/Dustin
O'Halloran) In yet another comic book adaptation ready for cinematic
plundering, Greg Rucka's "The Old Guard" concept was brought to life by
Charlize Theron as producer and star for Netflix in 2020, telling of the
not-so-original idea that there are self-healing superhumans out there
being pursued by evil government and corporate interests. This group is
known for doing humanitarian work around the world via vigilante
justice, and the catch to their powers of immortality is that they
eventually suddenly lose that capability for no known reason. When a
contemporary, American military servicewoman in Afghanistan fails to die
in combat due to having this unknown ability, she becomes the target of
the superhumans for assimilation into their group, all the while the
American pharmaceutical villains hunt them down to find their secret
sauce. While Theron's man-thrashing performance and the fact that a
woman of color, Gina Prince-Bythewood, finally helmed a major superhero
film were both noteworthy about
The Old Guard, the most
interesting nugget about the production was Rucka's requirement that a
gay love affair between two of the superhuman leads was retained with
passion in the film. (Cue up the bans in at least two dozen countries
run by hateful schmucks!) Despite relatively sparse action in the movie,
Netflix quickly greenlit a sequel. Prince-Bythewood had a working
collaboration with composer Mark Isham in her previous directorial
outings, but she turned to duo of Volker Bertelmann and Dustin
O'Halloran to supply music in between the numerous song placements in
The Old Guard. Bertelmann and O'Halloran burst into the
mainstream due to their unexpected awards nominations for 2016's
Lion, an overrated score, and they have continued working
together on film scores since. Both originating as pianists, it's
understandable that they tackle
The Old Guard with keyboarded
contemplation as the focus. The piano almost exclusively carries the
melodic contents of the score, with the largely moody and ambient work
filled out by synthesizers, manipulated percussion, orchestral string
section, and various solo choral effects. They experimented with a
variety of custom modular synthetic and percussion sounds recorded in an
Iceland warehouse to provide a unique set of tones for the surprisingly
dour score. As usual, though, such attempts at creativity provide
nothing engagingly new to the ears.
The result of Bertelmann and O'Halloran's efforts for
The Old Guard is remarkably drab despite being in the major key
during some of its more lyrical passages, the rendering of the score
intentionally hazy and inaccessible. The recording sounds like an
extension of a confusingly bad dream, watered down in its majority of
soft ambience while betraying a cheap brashness in its limited action
and suspense portions. More than half the work stews in contemplation,
sometimes pleasantly so, while the other half contains monotonous
synthetic muck meant to fill time with minimally dissonant noise and
basic percussive loops to keep the narrative moving. The most critical
error committed by Bertelmann and O'Halloran here is the lack of
disparate emotional appeal in necessary places, the thematic development
beaten down by the rendering. Those themes aren't transparent enough,
therefore, to really function in this setting. Arguably the main idea is
a rising series of five deliberate notes before a descending sixth,
clearly established up front in "The Old Guard" and repeated on solemn
piano in "They Grow Old" and "What If We Don't Live Forever?" Vaguely
choral at the end of "I Always Go First," the theme accelerates nicely
on piano at start of "Beach," finally developing more fully and
dramatically. A secondary theme of three descending notes follows the
main one in "The Old Guard" and serves as a point of lamentation on
piano in "Love That's Lost" and "What We Leave Behind." A third idea has
the obligatory shades of Hans Zimmer's "Journey to the Line" from
The
Thin Red Line, maturing in "Traitor" and "I Always Go First." Even
more singular lyrical explorations for keyboard and synthetic choral
effect occupy "Double Bubble" and "The Iron Maiden," each temporarily
showing glimpses of elegance. The highlight of the lot might be a new
idea at the end of "You Are Going to Help Us," with some major key hope
and notable violin solos closing out the score with solemn decency.
Sadly, the action music in
The Old Guard is terrible, "The Old
Guard Attacks" truly awful in its synthetic blasting of a horn on key
(it doesn't matter if it's real or synthetic, really), and the slapping,
looped effects in "Skybridge" are unlistenable. Together,
The Old
Guard is a minimally effective atmospheric work that offers 15 or
more minutes of marginally compelling keyboarded lyricism but no
narrative prowess and very substandard suspense and action material.
It's tempting to say that these composers were out of their league with
this assignment, the end product failing to coherently emote or excite.
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