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Review of Total Recall (Harry Gregson-Williams/Various)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you have an established taste for Harry
Gregson-Williams' heavily manipulated thumping, clicking, and grinding
thriller style that predictably uses secondary organic backing for
occasional warmth.
Avoid it... if you expect to hear anything relating to or competing with Jerry Goldsmith's tremendous score for the 1990 adaptation of the same concept, Gregson-Williams' approach to this remake sadly forced towards the purpose of generic background propulsion.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Total Recall (2012): (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, Total Recall. 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 Minority Report, a constant chase involving
fragmented memories, untrustworthy people, and futuristic flying cars.
Critics did not warm to Len Wiseman's Total Recall, 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 Total Recall,
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 Total Recall 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. **
TRACK LISTINGS:
Total Time: 56:22
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert includes no extra information about the score or film.
As in many of Amazon.com's "CDr on demand" products, the packaging smells
incredibly foul when new.
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