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Review of Steel (Mervyn Warren)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you're a fan of badly dated 1970's pop rock of
Shaft variety for your DC Comics superheroes.
Avoid it... if the above statement doesn't sound quite right and you're tired of highly derivative David Arnold-style orchestral action music.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Steel: (Mervyn Warren) The only lasting memory that
anyone should have about the dismal Steel film from 1997 was that
it earned basketball great Shaquille O'Neal the second Razzie Award
nomination in his first three films. Ironically, he didn't receive a
Razzie nomination for Kazaam the year previous, the success of
which contributed to his casting as a DC Comics protagonist in
Steel. The story comes from one of DC's lesser known comic
series, though in an age when Batman and Superman had
already been beaten to death in their film franchises, it made sense
that Steel would eventually be made. The story of Steel
involves a trio of scientists who invent a sonic weapon in modern day
Los Angeles. One of them cranks the power on the weapon too high during
a demonstration for a senator and kills the politician and disables the
female member of the group. The surly member who caused these problems
then goes into hiding after being kicked out of the military and, of
course, the sonic weapons start appearing on city streets. That leaves
the fate of the city up to the remaining scientist, who decides to do
what any of us would do: create an alter-ego, a cool outfit, some nifty
gadgets, and set out to destroy the enemy and stop muggings and parking
meter mutilation along the way. Well, there wasn't really any parking
meter mutilation going on, but the minute Shaq turned into Steel,
this film was doomed. It would have seemed that the choice of Kenneth
Johnson as director would have been decent, especially with the TV shows
V, Alien Nation, and The Incredible Hulk under his
belt. But the end result was juvenile, stupid, poorly shot, and suffered
from terrible acting, bad sets, and the ultimate in cheesy underscores
from Mervyn Warren. The career of Warren has varied between the titles
of vocalist, record producer, lyricist, songwriter, arranger, pianist,
and film composer, though he is probably best known as a successful jazz
vocalist for the group Take 6 from 1980 to 1991. On his own, his music
bounces between the genres of pop, R&B, hip-hop, classical, orchestral,
jazz, country, and gospel. Unfortunately, just a few too many of these
genres appear in Steel for it to be taken seriously.
Parts of Warren's score here are nearly laughable in their silly pop representations of the superhero genre on film. It's clear that he went for the highest possible "coolness" quotient, but in the process of trying to produce something as hip as Shaft, he brought along the badly dated sound of the 1970's. Somewhere between Lalo Schifrin and Quincy Jones we get the intolerable title theme for Steel, complete with the rhythms and instrumentation that makes that era of yesteryear such a painful episode in the action genre. But wait... the plot thickens! No superhero score of the 1990's would be complete without some kickass orchestral performances for the "larger than life" part of the story. After all, Shaq's a big guy. So Warren whips up some material highly derivative of Batman and all of David Arnold's majestic orchestral action scores of the era and alternates these performances with the hip 70's rock. There's even the stereotypical deep male chorus for additional power. The ultimate failing of Steel as a score, though, is the constant switching between the two genres, sometimes with few overlapping moments. Ironically, the few cues in which the full ensemble is combined with the rock rhythms and instrumentation, such as in the finale, are somewhat effective. The baffling part of Steel, on the surface, are the occasionally enjoyable, robust orchestral performances, with "Attack on Federal Reserve" highlighting these numerous cues. But then the name Nicholas Dodd appears on the packaging (as the conductor in this case), and suddenly the heavy David Arnold style in the action cues makes perfect sense; Dodd's involvement in other scores of suspicious quality (especially those in which the actual composer is out of his league in the genre) has often led to similar Arnold spin-off sounds in such scores. The ripping snare rhythms of Danny Elfman's Batman music are also quite tired in the score. The album finishes with an unfortunate pop song with lyrics by the director, and between the song, the mislabeled tracks on the packaging, and the poor consistency of the music, the Steel album is far from being a triumph in the career of producer Ford A. Thaxton and the now defunct SuperTracks promo factory. For the orchestral passages, Steel avoids the lowest ratings, but it's still a laughable score on the whole. **
TRACK LISTINGS:
Total Time: 51:41
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert includes a lengthy note from the director about the score and film.
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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 Steel are Copyright © 1997, Super Tracks Music Group (Promo) and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 4/12/98 and last updated 6/24/06. |
