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PRINTER-FRIENDLY VIEW 
Review of The 6th Day (Trevor Rabin)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
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.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
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. **
TRACK LISTINGS:
Total Time: 39:21
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert includes no extra information about the score or film.
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