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You can sum up Jablonsky's work here by making the following two conditional statements: if this score had been written for a Transformers film in 1996 and if the franchise had never existed before on television or the big screen, then this would easily be a four-star score. As it's heard in a 2007 film adapting a beloved concept, however, it's only half as good. You simply can no longer accept these "rehash" scores on the grounds that their "sound" is commonly acceptable as "expected" in a current, testosterone-driven "blockbuster." The minute you accept a score like Transformers as a praiseworthy piece of musical artistry is the same minute you accept the perhaps inevitable fact that modern audiences are either intrinsically dumb or have dramatically lower expectations in the music they hear in theatres. What kind of smart, creative thought process went through Jablonsky's mind when he decided to compile a series of tired Media Ventures/Remote Control musical ideas and repackage them into Transformers? Maybe he can blame his own pair of ghostwriters on the project. This score is like seeing the "Limited Edition" box of Post's Alpha-Bits cereal on supermarket shelves in 2007. You know that the original sugary form of the cereal went mostly extinct a while back, but now it's been repackaged as a "Limited Edition"... And you know what you get inside the box? The same old flavor in much smaller letters, not to mention more air space. So, in the end, there's something remotely satisfying about going back and enjoying those old days of Alpha-Bits crunching, but you can't shake that feeling like those times are definitely gone and you're only getting ripped off nowadays. Jablonsky's Transformers score gives you the same feeling. He wrote several themes for the film... Too many, in fact. Outside of the primary ideas for the Autobots and Decepticons, the remaining subthemes simply fade into the murky shades of Zimmer that prevail through most of the score. The fact that there exist more than a half-dozen unique themes in the new Transformers film is largely irrelevant because almost all of them use the same Trevor Rabin-inspired series of ultra-pleasant and masculine chord progressions that Rabin had originally learned from Zimmer. Most of these subthemes can be referenced to Armageddon, especially when they're performed by the same exact instrumentation.

The themes aren't alone what kill this score's hopes of surviving the wrath of intelligent listeners, however. The Autobots theme, while simplistic in all the expected ways, functions better than all of the other themes in the film. Its noble horns, ripping snare, and mixed chorus provide all the traits of Zimmer's best anthems, with a twist of Rabin's Deep Blue Sea for good measure. In the last few seconds of the theme, you finally hear some counterpoint to this presentation; unfortunately, it's essentially the Maximus theme from Gladiator. And even if you can forgive all of those "inspirations," you still have to deal with the simple minor key alternation of rhythm in the strings that is a disturbingly blatant copy of Batman Begins. That one's the killer of this score. Far more interesting is the staccato chanting for the Decepticons, staggering the Batman Begins-style of ostinato into a truly menacing choral performance that accompanies the exploits of Megatron and associated villains throughout the film. Otherwise, themes for the All Spark and Optimus Prime, among others, are lazy variants on the style prevailing in the Autobots theme. The "Optimus" cue is yet another uplifting variant of Armageddon, especially in its instrumentation. Between the electric bass, guitars, and woodwind solos, you'd think that the Autobots were trying to blow up a space rock and return to earth to rekindle a relationship with an Elvish-looking woman. Jablonsky reprises the primary two themes most often in the score, though without the distinct pacing of the Decepticons' theme, you'd hardly notice it over the sound effects. One of the highlights of the score for fans of the Zimmer "sound" will be "Arrival to Earth," which essentially takes all the associated, various thematic and instrumental tendencies (even down to the electric strings that seems to define a true Zimmer imitation score) and merges it into a climactic anthem of epic proportions that pays tribute to The Peacemaker,Crimson Tide, and all the early, influential Zimmer scores at once. As the Batman Begins rhythms continue in this and other cues, hints of King Arthur's choral majesty shine through. A light, plucked subtheme for the primary (and idiotic) human character, "Witwicky," changes the pace of the score, but only to remind us of the better moments of Rabin's National Treasure.

The action music in Transformers is less descript except in the moments of fierce bass pounding, such as the irritating, slower, electric version of the Batman Begins ostinato heard at the start of "Scorponok" that actually instills a minor sense of dread in the film. A bold variant of this rhythm for the American military, alternating between minor and major keys, serves the members of the audience who get erections while seeing American aircraft fly around and use their weapons (there's even a hint or two of Black Hawk Down in the on-again, off-again style of volume in this cue). The majority of action music late in the score simply takes the ideas already stated early in the film and amplifies them with additional layers of electronic noise. At some point, the woodwind-less orchestra, even with enhanced mixing of its brass section, simply loses out in their mix with the electronic and choral elements. Like Zimmer himself, Jablonsky mixes his orchestral recording in such a way as to make them sound synthetic; part of this phenomenon is due to the incredibly simplistic progressions, which tend to define synthetic recordings, but some of it is done to give the score a bigger bulge in the groin region. By the time you hear the closing "No Sacrifice, No Victory" cue, the Autobot theme is restated once again without much variation, showing that Jablonsky had little intent in actually providing some developmental depth to the musical ideas he adapted. Overall, the score works sufficiently in the film, which moves at a pace so fast that you hardly notice the score's weaknesses. In essence, a dumb eye-candy film has received its due Zimmeresque action score. The score was neglected on album for several months despite the film's success; during that time, a bootlegged version of the score was leaked to the incessant fanboys signing petitions for its official release. Perhaps the most amazing aspect of this entire situation is just how readily scores by the Media Ventures/Remote Control crowd get leaked to the public. Blame the huge crews for these recordings... seriously. Interestingly, when Warner Brothers did eventually release a score-only album for Transformers (absent those awful songs over the end credits, thank goodness), the product offered alternate, non-film versions of most of Jablonky's music. Thus, those die-hard fanboys couldn't sit only on their bootlegs. It was quite a creative move by Warner, acknowledging the leakage of the music and compensating by offering varying mixes that would still entice hardcore listeners. Unfortunately, those alternate versions aren't any more intelligent, and the album could really have used some of Cullen's narration at the start and end. As is, there truly isn't more than meets the eye.  **   @Amazon.com: CD or Download

Bias Check:

For Steve Jablonsky reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 2.2 (in 15 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 2.47 (in 11,912 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.

Total Time: 59:45