Filmtracks Traffic Rank: #1,100
Written 12/9/00, Revised 6/23/08
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Buy it... if the edgy, electronic action material of Trevor Rabin
is as satisfying for you as his usual, pleasantly harmonic anthems.
Avoid it... if you mock largely stock synthetic scores for their
childish and embarrassing lack of complexity or style.
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| Rabin |
The 6th Day: (Trevor Rabin) The concept of The
6th Day was an even more realistic examination of identity loss than
Arnold Schwarzenegger's more famous Total Recall, with which
The 6th Day was often compared. It poses a theory that corporate
defiance of a ban on human cloning in the near future would inevitably
lead to an assassination plot, conceivably yielding a decent action
thriller along the way. The film featured Schwarzenegger as both actor
and producer, though despite his best efforts to resurrect his career in
the years before his retirement to politics, The 6th Day was,
like End of Days, a monumental failure. The intriguing elements
of the plot, as well as a heartfelt, philosophical role for Robert
Duvall, were glossed over with tired action scenes that exposed
Schwarzenegger's as a overgrown relic in the genre. The production
itself went through several significant changes in its journey to the
screen, including an early attachment to the script by director Joe
Dante. Film score collectors greeted the prospect of pairing composer
Jerry Goldsmith with a futuristic Schwarzenegger film once again with
great enthusiasm. But replacement director Roger Spottiswoode sought to
collaborate with his Tomorrow Never Dies composer, David Arnold,
for The 6th Day. When Arnold himself pulled out of the
assignment, Spottiswoode, Schwarzenegger, and Columbia were treated to a
standard Media Ventures formula solution by Trevor Rabin, whose career
had just reached its crescendo in the late 1990's. Like Schwarzenegger's
style of old fashioned, muscular action, Rabin's stereotypical
blockbuster sound of just a few years prior was already showing its age.
Once thought to be a contributor to the definition of cool and
contemporary scores for the next decade of film scoring, Rabin offered a
general style that outlasted his own renderings of it. His predictable
anthems and lazy action music (that generally conveyed the sound of
low-budget, synthetic waste) was a quick fix for studios looking for a
tested, safe, and less expensive sonic avenue for problematic
productions such as The 6th Day.
While parts of previous Rabin scores for the likes of
Armageddon and
Deep Blue Sea at least generated a fair
amount of "guilty pleasure highlights,"
The 6th Day is a
considerable step downward, with only five or so minutes of truly
interesting material contained in its ranks. The rest of it is
confusingly inappropriate or borderline trashy. On the positive side,
the theme for Schwarzenegger's character is an attractively determined
anthem very similar to the title themes of the aforementioned Rabin
works. Its lengthy performance in "Adam's Theme" and token closing
moments in "The Kiss" combine for easy, harmonic listening. The theme is
heard in a few other incarnations, with some forceful intent added to
the victorious "Adam Goes Home." Unfortunately, however, there are
several negatives that diminish these five minutes. First, the
instrumentation is that of a low-budget hack-job consistent with the
worst portions of Rabin's previous works. The synthetic assistance to
the orchestral ensemble yields an abundance of unpolished edges, and the
looping electronic percussion is at times painful. A variety of
synthetic vocal effects are used in predictable Media Ventures fashion
and add little dimension to the equation. The ethnic and religious
accents in much of the score, often applied with voices, are either
underplayed (in the case of the religious connection, which was a rather
clever use by Rabin that needed further exploration) or plain nuts (in
the case of the Middle-Eastern flavor added for absolutely no reason
other than its inherent coolness). The action rhythms and motifs often
resort to nonsensical, electronic blasting. The secondary characters,
including the highly conflicted scientist in the form of Duvall, have no
substantial musical identity. Finally, Rabin seems to forget that
Schwarzenegger isn't a typical superhero in
The 6th Day. He's a
victim, and nothing in the score indicates his uneasy transition from
underdog to reluctant victor. The whole concept is badly addressed by
Rabin with simplistic noise that only contributed to the film's already
shaky focus. This is no
Total Recall, on screen or on album.
** @Amazon.com: CD or
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Bias Check:
For Trevor Rabin reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 2.5
(in 12 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 2.63
(in 13,621 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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