: (Harry
Gregson-Williams/Various) Bankrupt of new ideas, Columbia Pictures
announced in 2009 that it would produce a remake of the campy 1990 fan
favorite movie,
. Although California Governor Arnold
Schwarzenegger did express interest in reprising his prior role in the
remake, the 2012 version of the concept strayed away from him, the
levity he brought to the story, and, for that matter, Philip K. Dick's
actual 1966 idea that loosely inspired both films. The 1990 movie
represented a breakthrough in special effects that at least attempted to
be loyal to the Dick story, gaining respect over time as an infectious,
emotionally involving display of grotesque violence with kinky
undertones. While there were socialistic elements to the Paul Verhoeven
film, they were nowhere near the emphasis seen in the 2012 remake, which
essentially removes the alien and space-related aspects of Dick's tale
and replaces them with Earthbound political commentary. The brazen fun
of the 1990 movie is jettisoned to make room for what essentially plays
like a knock-off of
, a constant chase involving
fragmented memories, untrustworthy people, and futuristic flying cars.
Critics did not warm to Len Wiseman's
, and audiences
failed to make it the overwhelming box office success that the 1990 film
had been. One of the greatest assets of the prior
,
of course, was a tremendously entertaining score by Jerry Goldsmith, who
was at the later heights of his career at the time. There is no doubt
that the two versions of
differ in personality and
execution, and the music written by Goldsmith may not have fit at all in
the context of the remake. But this is a good opportunity to examine how
music functions in movies at a fundamental level, for you have here a
dichotomy between introverted and extroverted methodology that
illuminates a shift in how Hollywood filmmakers want music to function
in their post-2000 movies. What Goldsmith wrote was clearly an
extroverted score, wearing its themes on its sleeve and balancing
grandiose harmonic statements of wonder with his trademark flair for
rhythmic gravitas and synthetic augmentation of a primarily symphonic
soundscape. Conversely, the remake, handled by Tony Scott thriller
veteran Harry Gregson-Williams, is served with a comparatively
introverted score that was meant to enhance the sound effects of the
movie in a way that primarily focuses on background propulsion.
You can't really fault Gregson-Williams for this radical
shift in Hollywood's use of music in blockbuster movies that feature
chases, but you can be sure that Goldsmith's shadow looms large over the
music for 2012's
Total Recall nevertheless. One could say that
the two scores represent the composers "naturally doing what they do
best," and the remake effort certainly does resemble Gregson-Williams'
prior thriller works and all the norms of the industry from which such
music borrows regularly in the 2010's. You can hear pieces of many of
the composer's similar scores in
Total Recall, ranging from
Man on Fire to
Unstoppable. Despite the fact that he had
five months to toil with this assignment, the result of his efforts is
functional but pedestrian. As in many times before, he didn't tackle the
project alone, utilizing ghostwriters and reuniting once again with the
Welsh electronica/dance group Hybrid. His emphasis was on rhythmic flow,
stating, "A movie like this has a pulse running through it and the music
has a pulsating beat that's never at rest." Over this constant sense of
movement, Gregson-Williams did manage to concoct some themes, though he
made the conscious choice to keep them rather ambiguous as a
representation of the confused state of reality in the story. As such,
you don't really make many connections between his motifs until late in
the score. Nothing from Goldsmith's work survives, though there may be
an intentional reference to his mini "discovery" motif (consisting of
two rising notes from minor to major) in 2012's vastly inferior version
of "The Dream." Rather than illuminate his thematic connections to each
character and place (musical ties that do actually exist),
Total
Recall spends most of its length tearing through highly manipulated
electronic rhythms with orchestral string and brass recordings in a
secondary role. This setup is hardly new, the strings alternating
between melodramatic interludes and the John Powell-inspired ostinato
techniques favored by filmmakers during this time. The brass is
relegated to accent work for the weightier passages, though "Gravity
Reversing" does infuse some flair from the upper ranges. As usual for
Gregson-Williams, the tempered drama supplied by soft strings for
character depth is joined in several cues by solo piano, closing out the
action in "The Fall Collapses." A light, rather inconsequential choir
also enters in "Gravity Reversing," and solo vocal effects and vaguely
Eastern-sounding elements are sometimes explored far in the background
of the mix.
The personality of Gregson-Williams' music for
Total
Recall, however, is dominated by the expected, obnoxiously applied
electronic effects. Some listeners will be so overwhelmed by the
composer's normal array of samples that the organic part of the mix will
be completely irrelevant. This is, especially in its first half, a
predominantly industrial score, emulating Paul Haslinger to such an
extent that there are clear shades of
Underworld in the deeply
keyboarded motif heard in "Hand Call" and "Train to Matthias." Hints of
vintage Vangelis are also audible as
Blade Runner is teased at
1:10 into "Customs." Even the moments of bolder orchestral thematic
expression, such as the generic three-note theme of doom heard at 2:05
into "Car Chase Pt. 1" and 2:00 into "Elevator Chase," are harshly
rendered to the point where some might consider them synthetic. The
plethora of clicking and groaning noises, often emulating the sound of
electricity in pure Gregson-Williams fashion, is tiring, and one has to
once again wonder if the time has come to finally put to rest the
industry's usage of beloved reverb manipulation. Two sound effects exist
throughout
Total Recall that resemble the worst of modern film
scoring, both in this case descending tones meant to give you that
"sinking feeling." The first of these two hails from Danny Elfman's
Planet of the Apes and drills down through the bass region in
many cues, most irritatingly at the start of "Up Top Flight." The other
is the "failing aircraft engine" heard at the start of "The Tripping
Den" that sounds like a
Star Wars prequel spaceship effect and
serves a similar purpose. On top of these, you have a variety of likely
Hybrid-informed rhythmic bombardments of sampled noises that are all
ambience and no substance (the first half of "The Tripping Den" is truly
devoid of greater purpose). You have to exercise tremendous patience to
survive the first third of the score on album and explore the thematic
elements bolstered by the organic instruments that follow. There is not
a total lack of redemption in this score, and even if you are repulsed
by Gregson-Williams' frightfully generic tackling of the thriller genre
(he has arguably never achieved
Spy Game quality in the years
between that and
Total Recall), you will find some enjoyment in
"The Scar on Your Hand," "Train to Matthias," and the final cues. The
composer collects his tonally pleasing ideas for one easy statement of
coolness in "It's Hard to Believe, Isn't It?," though while this cue is
to
Total Recall what "My Name is Lincoln" was to Steve
Jablonsky's
The Island, the reading on the guilty pleasure meter
isn't anywhere close to the same.
Ultimately, Gregson-Williams provided the music that
2012's
Total Recall basically demanded, whether by the necessity
of its personality or the directive of its filmmakers. For a bleak,
technologically oppressive chasing scenario, he wrote bleak,
technologically oppressive chase music. The composer's fans will be
satisfied with the loyalty to his established thriller techniques. But
there is a larger question here, and it speaks to the role of a
soundtrack in a movie. In Gregson-Williams' day, film scores are
expected to enhance the narrative in an ambient sense, utilized in no
greater role than any other technical aspect of a science fiction
movie's production. In Jerry Goldsmith's day, there was the belief that
film scores in such circumstances needed to bridge the gap between the
foreign concepts on screen and the hearts of audience members. For
1990's
Total Recall, Goldsmith did just that, writing music that
was based upon familiar symphonic tones and rhythms to compensate for
the outrageously bizarre story. As such, you cared about the characters
and the people of Mars. There was gripping awe in his cues, the type of
majesty that forces filmmakers to place the music at the forefront of
the mix for lengthy periods of time during key special effects shots.
Conversely, 2012's
Total Recall doesn't afford a composer like
Gregson-Williams any such opportunity, nor does he make overt gestures
of emotional connectivity throughout the score to help the audience care
about the characters. When you read the many negative reviews of this
movie referencing a lack of interest in the characters and their
circumstances, the music is partly to fault. Both Goldsmith and
Gregson-Williams utilized synthetic and organic blends in their handling
of the concept (Goldsmith's mastery of this balance was often
brilliant), but the resulting effect on the audience couldn't be more
different. Before concluding this review, a word has to be said about
remakes and their soundtracks in general. Hollywood needs to remember
that the movies worth remaking, though few, were often celebrated
because of their music. No greater example was
Conan the
Barbarian, and when Tyler Bates insulted the late Basil Poledouris
with his wretched remake score in 2011, producers should have taken
notice. Gregson-Williams doesn't disgrace Goldsmith to the same degree,
but there is no question that film music listeners will vastly prefer
the original due to the remake score's comparatively pedestrian
personality. Imagine the diluted music that will someday accompany a
probable remake of
The Matrix, among others. As for 2012's
Total Recall, the download-only product (a "CDr on demand" option
from Amazon.com did eventually materialize) is a disappointment most
measures, especially when inevitably compared to its predecessor.
** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
| Bias Check: |
For Harry Gregson-Williams reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 2.94
(in 35 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 2.99
(in 51,909 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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