| CLOSE WINDOW |
|
FILMTRACKS.COM
PRINTER-FRIENDLY VIEW 
Review of Project Power (Joseph Trapanese)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you've been dying to hear Joseph Trapanese's enigmatic
score for Attack of the Killer Robots, Part Five: Revenge of the
Walmart Droids, a much-demanded work mistakenly repurposed for the
film Project Power.
Avoid it... if you are heartbroken that this classy film was somehow adorned with music consisting of brooding, aggressive, and groaning synthetic pulses of once-organic but now mind-numbing, pitch-defying noise.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Project Power: (Joseph Trapanese) Finally, someone
made a film about a pill that can give average church-goers five minutes
of superhuman powers inspired by animal capabilities. In 2020's
Project Power, Jamie Foxx chases around a near-future New
Orleans trying to determine how these pills got loose from the usual
military/industrial complex cabals. Not unexpectedly, those magnanimous
pill-masters are using the impoverished, ethnic-minority citizens of
hurricane-ravaged America to test the pills' unpredictable results. Of
course, being typical Americans of poor judgement, a large portion of
people who ingest the "power" pills use their five minutes to commit
crimes against humanity and, in some thankful cases, destroy themselves
in the process. Foxx's Delta Force character teams up with a New Orleans
cop and female teenage rap artist to, well, at least marginally control
the situation and get the lead's daughter back from the power-pill
cartel. The film was met with criticism for not meeting anywhere near
the full potential of the concept, as much could be dramatized in how
people use five minutes of such power. Instead, Project Power
devolves into the true American super-purpose: senseless killing for the
sake of senseless killing. Woo-hoo! Composer Joseph Trapanese is no
stranger to science fiction schlock of the modern era, transitioning
from Tron: Legacy to a series of genre classics like the
Divergent and Oblivion concepts. Holed up because of the
pandemic in early 2020, Trapanese confessed to being thrilled about
writing masculine killing music for this movie, stating, "I'm really
grateful that while I was locked down, I was able to have some fun." He
decided to do something no digital-era composer had ever attempted
before: take organic sounds and manipulate them digitally to sound cool.
"A lot of times, in scoring, you really have to be a music producer
because you have to find cool sounds and you have to bring together
different musicians, different variables," he said, hinting that his
droning, highly manipulated score would benefit from the emphasis of a
specific string, percussion, or synthetic element in each cue to
emphasize the idea of power. "One of the things I even did was I took
recordings of animal sounds because this pill unleashes hidden powers
within your DNA. So I use these animal screams and animal calls as part
of the musical textures. It was really fun to do something like that."
That's right, folks, your cats and dogs will love this one!
But, alas, to the disappointment of pets and James Horner romantics everywhere, no such advertised animal noises of distinct pleasure are actually clearly evident in Trapanese's score for Project Power. His attempts to explore some New Orleans-style noir jazz of the future are tepid at best, too. In fact, there's nothing particularly powerful about this music, nor does it say anything even marginally compelling about humanity. The story has characters, a setting, a plot, a conflict, and a resolution, does it not? Were there even real bipeds in this movie? Were the New Orleans Saints fans going into the Superdome in that one scene all secret admirers of Tom Brady? Certainly, a film about how people react to such intriguing stimuli from a mystery pill must speak at some point to the human heart, no? The music for this film answers none of those questions, which can lead to only one startling conjecture: Trapanese submitted the wrong recordings to the filmmakers. Instead of sending them his polished musical brilliance for Project Power, he accidentally sent them his unlistenable synthetic mashup for the film Attack of the Killer Robots, Part Five: Revenge of the Walmart Droids and nobody noticed the difference. In this fine picture, the robots stocking the shelves of Walmarts across America are taken over by Greek intelligence services due to that country's intense animosity towards encroachment of American fast food on Greece's souvlaki and gyro shops. The droids first corner and torture a group of plus-sized shoppers of limited mobility in the store restrooms of a Walmart near Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. For this harrowing scene of humiliation, Trapanese recorded a series of brooding, aggressive, and groaning synthetic pulses of once-organic but now mind-numbing, pitch-defying noise. Before long, the droids have overrun America and are shooting deadly tubs of Chobani yogurt at socialist hordes on the streets of Seattle. For this dandy display of authoritarian control, Trapanese conjured a series of brooding, aggressive, and groaning synthetic pulses of once-organic but now mind-numbing, pitch-defying noise. As the angry droids spread towards Yankeedom, they brutally assault two young fornicators in their car outside Intercourse, Pennsylvania by using surplus Dora the Explorer merchandise as unexpectedly lethal weapons. In this short but poignant cue, Trapanese turned to a series of brooding, aggressive, and groaning synthetic pulses of once-organic but now mind-numbing, pitch-defying noise. A cameo featuring Kate Beckinsale crushing a droid between her bare thighs while reciting Shakespeare unfortunately used a snippet of Alan Silvestri's famous Predator theme instead of Trapanese's score. In the highlight of Attack of the Killer Robots, Part Five: Revenge of the Walmart Droids, the mechanical villains, undeterred by QAnon rhetoric, pursue former American president Donald J. Trump across a Florida golf course, pummeling him with absurd quantities of low-end hair products at high-end muzzle velocity. This extraordinarily comedic scene was addressed by Trapanese with a series of brooding, aggressive, and groaning synthetic pulses of once-organic but now mind-numbing, pitch-defying noise. Finally, as the droids learn to travel safely by air and sea, they launch a massive, coordinated attack on a sex toy factory in Tianjin, China. Fortunately, the child labor at that installation quickly learns that the droids can be rendered inert by thrusting Lovehoney-brand silicone dildo vibrators (the oversized black variety) into the robots' rear power couplings. This heroic scene required a long, dark, and throbbing cue from Trapanese, who responded with a series of brooding, aggressive, and groaning synthetic pulses of once-organic but now mind-numbing, pitch-defying noise. In the epilogue of Attack of the Killer Robots, Part Five: Revenge of the Walmart Droids, the surviving humans emerge victoriously to gaze upon ruined landmarks around the world, and Trapanese, rather than unleashing his inner David Arnold, scored this glorious coda with a series of brooding, aggressive, and groaning synthetic pulses of once-organic but now mind-numbing, pitch-defying noise. After seven minutes of end credits music consisting of a series of brooding, aggressive, and groaning synthetic pulses of once-organic but now mind-numbing, pitch-defying noise, audiences are treated to a delightful bonus scene in which a still-functional Walmart droid rises from the ashes while holding a box of urinal pucks, looks at the camera, and says in a perfect Ernest Borgnine voice, "Fuck you, asshole." For some reason, Trapanese left this crucial moment unscored, and this was an inexplicable error in the spotting sessions on the part of the composer, for this scene was begging for a series of brooding, aggressive, and groaning synthetic pulses of once-organic but now mind-numbing, pitch-defying noise. The consistency of this score is truly commendable, only the cues "Knifebone" and "Power" briefly deviating from the mind-numbing, pitch-defying noise to explore the bold new worlds of vague tonality and resolution. One must wonder how the score for Attack of the Killer Robots, Part Five: Revenge of the Walmart Droids could have been mistaken as appropriate for a human-centered noir thriller like Project Power. Trapanese and the filmmakers must know the difference. Otherwise, why not simply have the droids write and record the music? FRISBEE
TRACK LISTINGS:
Total Time: 73:10
NOTES & QUOTES:
There exists no official packaging for this album.
Copyright ©
2021-2024, Filmtracks Publications. All rights reserved.
The reviews and other textual content contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Christian Clemmensen at Filmtracks Publications. All artwork and sound clips from Project Power are Copyright © 2020, Maisie Music Publishing and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 2/15/21 (and not updated significantly since). No offense to Ernest Borgnine intended. |
