: (Tom Holkenborg) It's puzzling
to imagine why anyone would want to watch a film about a video game
character that they should rightfully be playing as instead, but Sega's
"Sonic the Hedgehog" was one of those concepts that Sony and later
Paramount spent decades trying to adapt to the big screen. The final
product by the latter studio was delayed significantly because the
rendering of the titular blue hedgehog was deemed too bizarrely
human-like in the first cut of the film. Indeed, people do care about
such things. When
finally debuted in early
2020, the more faithful depiction and Jim Carrey's engrossing
performance as the live-action tale's villain, Dr. Robotnik, propelled
the film to surprising success, this despite a rather pointless
screenplay as one might expect. Sonic arrives on Earth (Green Hills
exists in Montana, oddly, despite that state not looking like the video
game's most famed setting much at all) and befriends a local police
officer who helps Sonic escape evil Dr. Robotnik's attempts to capture
him for the American military. As asinine as that sounds, a Sonic film
sequel was green-lit almost immediately. The legacy of the early 1990's
video game factors into the music for
as well,
Masato Nakamura's hypnotically cheesy but chipper material for the
concept remaining engrained for many enthusiasts. The assignment for
scoring the adaptation would have seemed the best natural fit for Henry
Jackman and his crew, who had mastered the blend of early synthesized
game music and fully orchestral force in
. Rather,
synthetic music enthusiast extraordinaire Tom Holkenborg, having dropped
his stage name of Junkie XL for his film music career, tackled
with zeal. As the owner of rare early Yamaha equipment,
Holkenborg initially suggested that the tone of Nakamura's vintage
recordings play a larger role in this score, though director Jeff Fowler
steering him towards a more conventional, symphonic approach because of
the more dramatic narrative of the movie.
Unfortunately, while the vintage elements do figure in
a few key moments during the score for
Sonic the Hedgehog, their
presence is diminished almost too much. Jackman's
Wreck-it-Ralph
scores are the gold standard of these gaming and movie blends, and
Holkenborg ultimately produces far more conservative music than could
have been applied. He cites Leonard Bernstein and Scott Bradley's scores
for the original "Tom and Jerry" cartoons as his most significant
influences, and he manages to accomplish a pretty good result. It's
almost like hearing Steven Price's evolution in
Wonder Park;
frenetic children's music for an orchestra can be an immense challenge,
and it's good to hear these more experimental composers take a shot at
them. For enthusiasts of the "Sonic the Hedgehog" concept generally,
there will be some smiles to result from Holkenborg's use of fragments
of Nakamura's own "Green Hills" theme in the modernized but similarly
spirited "Welcome to Green Hills." (Don't expect a wealth of lengthy,
direct quotations.) Those hoping for some of the catchy melody of
Michael Tavera's snazzy "Fastest Thing Alive," the theme song of the
"Sonic the Hedgehog" animated series, also from the 1990's, will be
disappointed, though the opening "Meet Sonic (Before We Start I Gotta
Tell You This)" features a choral crescendo with a distinct, descending
two-note phrase that could just as easily fit the lyrics of "Sonic."
Otherwise,
Sonic the Hedgehog is largely a Holkenborg product. He
does employ a variety of vintage Yamaha sounds in several cues, though
there are extended sequences without them. The orchestra features brass,
woodwinds, and high strings; no basses and only one cello are credited,
so it begs questions about how much of the bass in the score is
synthetic. An acoustic guitar handles almost all the personal warmth as
per usual. The mixture of the brass is rather harsh, which can be
forgiven because of the need to match the abrasive tone of the
synthetics. Holkenborg's sound design tendencies only inhabit a few
cues, as in "A Visit from the Doctor." Conventional rock elements
overwhelm the Yamaha contributions in "Welcome to Green Hills."
Holkenborg's two themes for
Sonic the Hedgehog are accessed
frequently but not well enunciated most of the time, diminishing their
effectiveness at several key moments in the narrative.
The main theme is a new one for Sonic, summarized in
the score's obvious highlight, the "Sonic the Hedgehog" arrangement at
the end of the album. It's a really great theme, but the composer treats
it like David Arnold did the James Bond theme in
Casino Royale,
never truly unleashing it until this one moment. After hints at end of
"Welcome to Green Hills," the theme is sprinkled throughout "A Very
Lonely Life" before an incomplete, heroic variant at 1:48. A cameo in
the middle of "That Would Work" is followed by a broken version at 0:36
into "Things to Do Before I Die," hints in heroic mode in the middle of
"But I Will Always Be Faster," and later becoming fuller at 3:17 into
that cue. Further fragments continue in "He is My Friend," Holkenborg
never letting it fully develop, even during the climax. It opens "A New
Home" warmly on acoustic guitar but again never seems to flow naturally.
Each of these performances stirs dissatisfaction because the composer
simply doesn't complete the identity with meaningful success at any
point until "Sonic the Hedgehog." This hesitancy to clearly define the
role of the theme allows the villain's motif to dominate the score. The
Dr. Robotnik theme is equally easy to quote by its unique structure, and
Holkenborg does so more liberally. The cutely stomping, only marginally
menacing idea is summarized in "Dr. Robotnik," followed by puffed and
plucked hints late in "Is That a Drone" and vague references throughout
"A Visit from the Doctor." The theme asserts itself after a surprising
jolt in "Skyscraper" and appropriately mingles with Sonic's theme in "He
is My Friend" after a few suggestions in "Not a Baby Bigfoot." The late
action cues do try to pit the themes against each other, but while these
passages supply sufficient ruckus for the movie, Holkenborg clearly
needs a bit more practice with his fluency in thematic statement. Along
these lines,
Sonic the Hedgehog could sound woefully anonymous
during its strictly orchestral portions, leaving cues with the Yamaha
touch, like "A Very Lonely Life" and "But I Will Always Be Faster," as
memorable favorites. Even here, Holkenborg doesn't meet the standard of
Jackman's work. Still, everything in
Sonic the Hedgehog is
basically proficient, especially the orchestrations, and the closing
thematic summary on the album is not to be missed. But while a movie
like this is not high art, there's a nagging feeling that more could
have been done with this score to blend the concept's past with tighter
new thematic development and enunciation. Given that the little blue
bastard never seems to stop, a second chance will speed along before
long.
*** @Amazon.com: CD or
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| Bias Check: |
For Tom Holkenborg reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 2.16
(in 19 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 2.48
(in 5,687 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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