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| Silvestri |
Van Helsing: (Alan Silvestri) Launching the 2004 summer
movie season with some serious biting power,
Van Helsing slashed into
theatres as yet another post-2000 entry in the genre of comic-style vampire,
werewolf, and monster battles. Director Stephen Sommers left behind the desert of
his
The Mummy films and headed to the stark, black versus black world of
Transylvania, where Van Helsing (Hugh Jackman) and his appropriately butt-kicking
female sidekick (Kate Beckinsale once again, an actress who was trying really
hard to shed that "nice girl with soft accent" image) set out to destroy Count
Dracula (Richard Roxburgh), his hoards of seductive vampire brides, and, not to
miss the opportunity for some additional cross-referenced fun, the infamous Wolf
Man and Frankenstein's Monster. Our heroes must vanquish the evil forces to
strike a curse on Beckinsale's character, Anna Valerious, and rid the poor folk
of Eastern Europe of a nasty reputation for housing such unseemly neighbors. The
film's gorgeous special effects of dark blue and gray hues led to
Van
Helsing's destiny as a perpetual regular on cable television. Composer Alan
Silvestri had produced arguably the best of the franchise for Sommers'
The
Mummy Returns and had since provided an action score for
Tomb Raider: The
Cradle of Life that was substantially better than the film it accompanied.
Silvestri, who sometimes gets stuck in the mud when tackling smaller scale
suspense and horror genre scores, seems to hold his best inspiration for the days
when he can compose for and record immense orchestral and choral action. Both
The Mummy Returns and
Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life took the
composer to a much more complex level of orchestral mayhem than heard in the days
of his popular early scores for
Back to the Future and
The Abyss.
With each passing large-scale project, Silvestri made more and more ruckus,
stirring up the summer seasons of the early 2000's by contributing his own wild
action scores that could very well raise a person from his or her grave. For
Van Helsing, this trend continued, even to a greater scale, allowing the
force of a full orchestra and adult choir to set a high standard for summer
action once again.
To leave the
Van Helsing score by simply stating that it
is exceedingly noisy would be unfair to the merits of the score, but it is indeed
very, very noisy. In fact, don't expect anything longer than a minute-long break
from the full-scale bombast of this action score. With a constantly immense sound
and resounding bass,
Van Helsing is so huge and relentless in its dark
swells and driving rhythms that you have to be prepared and in a proper mood to
enjoy its album. Seemingly without much electronic accompaniment, Silvestri
overwhelms you the old fashion way, with highly structured orchestral rhythms
propelling every cue on the backs of the percussion section. It is a very
thematic work, although a casual listener might miss these themes because there
is so much frenetic orchestral action occurring all at once, not to mention a
problem with the memorability of the title theme. Silvestri does break a
fundamental rule of film music, however, writing themes for the villains and
secondary characters that vastly outshine the melodic identity of the hero. In
this case, the pounding percussive representation for Dracula and his vampires,
complete with chanting choir and whispering bat-like effects, dominates
immediately in "Transylvania" and throughout the score's action sequences.
Dracula himself receives a devious climbing and falling identity late in "Burn It
Down!" that explodes in full by "Dracula's Nursery." The Frankenstein Monster
actually receives the score's most compelling theme, a bittersweet and heroic
idea with harp flourishes in the beautifully shot windmill sequence of "Burn It
Down!" and when he swings from the wires of Dracula's castle late in "Final
Battle" (along with a brief statement in "Who Are They to Judge?"). Anna's
character has an equally lamenting thematic identity, gorgeously unleashed with
female voices during the heavenly sequence in "Reunited." That leaves Van Helsing
himself with the weakest theme and underlying rhythmic motif. The rambling
acoustic guitar rhythm for the character (heard first in an unreleased cue as he
rides through Paris after the windmill scene) sounds remarkably strange in
context and almost ruins the last moments of the film, during which the theme
receives its most robust statement. There is some debate about whether the brass
and choral theme in "Reunited" is a love theme or part of Van Helsing's own
identity, though it's likely the former.
All of these themes are quite predictable, with simple chord
progressions raising memories of both Danny Elfman and Elliot Goldenthal's themes
for the
Batman franchise, and the Dracula theme in particular has an
almost-playful personality which, along with timpani and brass use, will intrigue
fans of Goldenthal's
Batman Forever score. The scope of
Van Helsing
is also of note; David Arnold collectors will also likely enjoy the broad strokes
of brass similar to those of
Independence Day in "Who Are They to Judge?"
Silvestri inserts a plethora of instrumental texture throughout
Van
Helsing worth mentioning as well. The staggering waltz for violin in "All
Hallow's Eve Ball" and a choir that performs pulsating crescendos in the style of
Don Davis' latter two
The Matrix scores are both memorable. A theme of
nearly swashbuckling spirit debuts in "Useless Crucifix" and continues through
the end of "Final Battle," and this seemingly positive motif in an otherwise dark
score seems out of place. The "Reunited" cue is by far the most enjoyable
presentation of any idea on album, despite the awkward guitar, chime, and
synthesizer theme for Van Helsing at its very end. Silvestri's use of a solo
female voice to represent Valerious' curse and a solo flute to shine a ray of
light onto a previously hopeless situation are nothing less than lovely. The
determined thematic expression here elegantly maintains the power of the score's
rhythms with snare highlights under each measure. A touch of Jerry Goldsmith's
layering of horns over the top of the theme is also to be heard. The combination
of themes for Dracula, his vampires, and the Frankenstein Monster over the black
and white windmill sequence at the start is old-fashioned movie music magic at
its best. Ultimately, Silvestri's
Van Helsing follows almost every
guideline in the handbook for action score success, and with a strong execution
of that writing by the ensemble, the score is highly recommended. Its only
weakness remains the fact that hero's theme is by far less entertaining than
those for the other major characters, and, for some, the nonstop pace of action
will strike with blunt intentions. The album presentation would have been better
balanced if a greater quantity of softer underscore was included on the 43-minute
product. Overall, though, despite a lack of variance between high and low,
Van
Helsing is one monumentally bold and wickedly exciting work.
**** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
| Bias Check: |
For Alan Silvestri reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.39
(in 36 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.28
(in 33,850 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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The insert includes advertisements and a fold-out poster, but no extra
information about the score or film.
*NM*
