Suicide Squad: (Steven Price) Somewhere between the
explosive financial success of the DC Comics super-villain spin-off
Suicide Squad and the election of Donald J. Trump as the
President of the United States came the proof in 2016 that people
apparently don't care about measured substance as long as the angry
glitz factor in their lives is cranked to the max. The "extended DC
universe" of films inspired originally by filmmaker Zack Snyder was
affirmed by the immense returns for
Suicide Squad despite
widespread critical disdain and clear storytelling weaknesses, literally
countless cinematic ventures involving individual characters of the
universe slated to appear in their own films later in the 2010's . In
Suicide Squad, a number of villains in the universe are newly
introduced to audiences as they are assembled by the usual shadowy
government entities to fight together against some common threat to
humanity. In return for their services, which, in this case, involve
chasing down the archeologist-turned-sorceress trying to punish mankind
for some personal offense, their prison sentences will be reduced. As
expected, backstories are slim on depth and allegiances are tested
constantly. The only really intriguing point of interest in the story is
the odd love affair between the Joker and Harley Quinn; otherwise, the
script was pretty universally bashed. Director David Ayer returned to
composer Steven Price for the score for
Suicide Squad having
enjoyed some perceived success together on 2014's
Fury, Price's
only other feature film score since his inexplicable Academy Award win
for 2013's
Gravity. Price's ascent to the mainstream after years
toiling on the crews for many major composers is the stuff of dreams,
though the quality of his music has not, at least in his first three
efforts of note, matched the hype. In the case of
Suicide Squad,
he dives into the ultra-messy world of comic book adaptation scores that
has been a severely hit and miss prospect over the previous decade.
Clearly, his aim was to lean towards the darker, arguably more
fashionable brooding of the Hans Zimmer and Tom Holkenborg vision of the
realm, a tact that meshes with the style of his scores for
Fury
and
Gravity without significant alteration. Unfortunately for
Price, studio efforts to salvage the film led to extensive late edits
that included the dropping of many of his cues in favor of the style of
rock songs that propelled the more popular song soundtrack for the
picture.
The most obvious impression that Price's work for
Suicide Squad will leave with you is a confirmation that the man
prioritizes the sonic textures of his palette over strong structural
development of a musical narrative. He has all the right tools,
instruments, and voices available to him in this score, and he throws
them at you with relentless, sometimes senseless zeal, generating a
score that has the sound of a winner but never the heart of one. The
electronic manipulations in this score aren't as obnoxious as in his
prior major efforts, but they are replaced with pounding drum kit
explosions that are mixed too far to the forefront. Solo and ensemble
voices, along with duduk, piano, cello, and other instrumental colors,
are, conversely, pushed to the back of the mix, negating their potential
compelling impact. The only exception is the cello, which addresses the
melodramatic undertones of the character origins at times with vaguely
romantic appeal. Grating electronic layers of dissonance are less
prevalent here, thankfully, and the bubbling tones of the synths are
actually pretty nicely handled throughout some of the conversational
cues. The orchestral ensemble is still restrained to the usual
Zimmer-inspired string ostinatos and low brass emphasis in most places,
regurgitating predictable rhythmic devices when the need for
anticipation and momentum is demanded. Like Price's other works,
Suicide Squad can be interesting to digest when it is more
contemplative, the Joker and Quinn subtheme in particular ("Arkham
Asylum," "Harley and Joker") the easy highlight of the score in its
tortured drama and use of voice and percussion. On the other hand, the
majority of the work seems rather aimless, the motifs for all the
characters extremely simple and likely reminiscent of past scores for
avid film collectors. Other than the aforementioned, painful love theme,
the character motifs in
Suicide Squad are substandard and, worse
yet, barely recognizable for the casual listener. Even the main theme
and its underlying rhythm are somewhat silly in their constructs, Price
pulling heavily from Jerry Goldsmith's
Rambo: First Blood Part II
for the main theme heard in five or six cues. He commits the terrible
sin of writing a primary theme that isn't as memorable as its more
obvious introductory rhythmic riff; that rhythm, which only utilizes two
notes, is where the ass-kicking of the score truly comes into play
(think back to the drum kits), and Price at times utilizes the rhythm
without the main theme. Expect some mainstream listeners to misidentify
the riff as the actual main theme for the film.
Together, one would think that the main rhythm and
theme for
Suicide Squad could realize their significant potential
quite easily, but their primary arrangement in "Task Force X," among
other places, fails to really convey them with any impressive symbiosis
aside from the outburst late in "The Squad." In fact, the main theme may
be difficult for some listeners to grasp at all in the opening track on
album, the idea revealing itself better in the latter half of the work.
While a majority of the score meanders without much purpose after its
initial few cues of interest, Price does adhere to one of Zimmer's early
1990's trademarks as opposed to those of the 2000's and beyond, and
that's the morbid dramatic tonality that keeps much of the music
basically accessible. A cue like "Are We Friends or Are We Foes?" is,
structurally, a juvenile and rather stupid construct, but the tonal
dedication to key makes the cue, in its rock, orchestral, and choral
coloration, basically entertaining at the very least. The only
distraction in this adherence comes with some likely incidental
similarities to Zimmer's
The Peacemaker. The last few cues in the
score fail to reach any meaningful catharsis, "Are We Friends or Are We
Foes?" seeming like the better natural ending to the album experience.
Instead, the final few tracks do draw out the meter for a little added
emphasis on the dramatic, but there's no sense of resolution from any of
it. In the end, it's not surprising to see the intellectuals of the film
music world continue to criticize Price for concentrating on style
rather than substance, and that's a very valid point when considering
the unrealized potential that you can hear in
Suicide Squad. It
would not have been too difficult to rearrange this score into a really
awesome product, especially when it came to handling its mix. Price does
need to refine his ability to enunciate and develop his motifs to better
ends, because that functionality of the music is clearly an area of
improvement he needs to explore. All of that said, though, the stylish
rendering of his music here, along with the valid attempt to combine
rock and orchestral elements, will alone make the score more attractive
to many soundtrack collectors than the totally depressing muck generated
by Zimmer and Holkenborg for equivalent films of the era. As a listening
experience,
Suicide Squad is much superior to
Gravity and
Fury despite its flaws. The generous score-only album contains
music that was replaced by songs in the film and, while lacking in
narrative, does remain consistent for better or worse. It's hard to make
the case that Price shouldn't be encouraged to score another of these
comic book films, if only to work on improving his structural issues to
match his clear knack for style and texture.
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The insert includes a list of performers but no extra information about the score or film.