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Review of Poseidon (Klaus Badelt)

FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:

Buy it... if you appreciate simplistic, partially orchestral themes over thick beds of electronic samples and drum loops.

Avoid it... if you can't distinguish between the standardized action scores of Hans Zimmer's clones.

FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Poseidon: (Klaus Badelt) If composer Klaus Badelt's studio was flipped over, filled with water, and rocked by random explosions, would he do the sensible thing and make for an immediate escape? Or would he stop just long enough to try to salvage his hard drives of redundant orchestral samples and drum loops? After listening to Poseidon, you get worried that he'd actually consider the latter. There are lots of mind-numbing aspects of the 2006 remake of the popular 1972 film, and Badelt contributes to that haze. Wolfgang Petersen's film isn't a step-for-step remake of The Poseidon Adventure, but all the essentials are the same. An ocean liner celebrating new year's eve is broadsided by a rogue wave and flipped over. Most of the passengers flail around and are killed while a small group of unlikely characters makes it to the bottom of the hull and escapes. There's even a pop song in mix, hoping to attract Oscar consideration. While the 2006 version hasn't been whipped by critics like it could have been, there's nothing truly interesting about a story in which everyone knows what's going to happen. Irwin Allen would be proud that his inspiration has been resurrected once again, but it's hard to say that anyone else would be excited by Poseidon. One possible positive aspect of Poseidon is its reluctance to dig too deeply into its characters; we simply accept them as stereotypes and move on. Klaus Badelt does the same with the score, ignoring the individual stories and focusing on only one overarching theme and style to represent the story. Badelt has had a severely hit-and-miss career, attached mostly to Hans Zimmer and other Media Ventures artists, and Poseidon will cause many of the same frustrations for detractors of Badelt (and Zimmer) who find his music underachieving and uninteresting. Perhaps the most perplexing aspect of this score is Badelt's reliance on the synthetic when he obviously had an orchestral ensemble ready for the task. In these cases, only a tight budget can usually justify such moves.

Despite the presence of an orchestra in most of the cues in Poseidon, the electronics prevail. This may have been intentional, with Badelt deciding to tackle the score by addressing the highly mechanized appearance of the ship (and its challenges) with his synthetic groaning and tearing sounds. But the story is inevitably one of human perseverance, and it is here where the Poseidon score fails. And whereas the synthetic chopping cello effect may represent perseverance in a submerged military setting, the use of such non-organic sounds in Poseidon makes the story cold and uncaring. Badelt does go through the proper motions, however, writing a somewhat compelling title theme for the film and reprising it in several places outside of its full performances in the opening and closing cues. The rising progression of the theme is appropriate for the struggle at hand, and it suffices in providing the satisfaction necessary (with the typical choral effect) at the end of the film. But even at its height, this theme is nearly drowned out by a thick bed of drum loops and electronic filler samples. Several of the action pieces in the middle portion of the score will hint at interesting orchestral motifs, with individual instruments struggling to be notice, but Badelt's samples and loops win the battle and define the score. Aside from the sustained dissonance of "The Wave," there's nothing really suspenseful about the score, nor does instrumentation provide any interesting entertainment. An acoustic guitar attempts to carry the title theme several times, only to be squashed by percussive rhythms. Collectors of Hans Zimmer works will find some highly derivative moments, confirming for skeptics that Poseidon could very well have received nothing more than a mechanized, out-of-the-box score. Aside from that drab score, the studio decided to replace 1972's "The Morning After" with two average songs performed by Stacy Ferguson of the hip-hop group Black Eyed Peas, and thus marketed the album with her name and picture all over it. The thirty minutes of Badelt score won't become the guilty pleasure that some of his works tend to be, and given the symphonic talents he displayed for the concurrent release of The Promise, it's hard to imagine why he produces such simplistic muck for a film that could truly benefit from an Irwin Allen-sized score. John Williams is sitting someplace and reminiscing.  **

TRACK LISTINGS:

Total Time: 41:44

• 1. Won't Let You Fall - performed by Stacy Ferguson (4:36) • 2. Bailamos - performed by Stacy Ferguson (3:10) • 3. Postales - performed by Federico Aubele (4:09) • 4. The Poseidon (3:18) • 5. The Wave (4:37) • 6. A Map and a Plan (2:29) • 7. Fire Dive (2:48) • 8. Claustrophobia (7:09) • 9. Drowning (3:04) • 10. Don't Look Down (3:43) • 11. Escape (2:41)

NOTES & QUOTES:

The insert includes no extra information about the score or film.

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