CONSTANTINE and the worst score of the year

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romanD
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CONSTANTINE and the worst score of the year

#1 Post by romanD »

Hi there, just saw CONSTANTINE in a press showing. Movie was good, starts great, but then doesn't want to know what it wants to be: A Film Noir Dedective Story? An FX Actioner? A religious drama?
But it has its share of fairly good and exciting sequences, Hell looks great, though I didn't like the design of the demons and Peter Stormare was just great as the Devil. Hilarious, but menacing as well.
Worth a look, but don't expect a non-stop-action-movie, which the adverts make it look like.

What the movie truly suffers from is the horrible score, concocted by the overrated Brian Tyler and the uberhack Klaus Badelt. How these two came together on the project I can only explain like this: The makers wanted to throw out Tyler's score, but there wasn't enough time to replace it whole. So Badelt comes in and puts horribel synths pattern everywhere, which neither support the scenes, nor really fits to the scenes.
It saddens me even more, because the movie has such rich visuals, so many different elements which should inspire every composer to write a rich, diverse score. What would Young or Howard have done with such a movie?!!! But then these two idiots gets asked to write the score and they come up with the most boring, simple and annoying music you can think of. What an opportunity wasted.
I never understood why so many soundtrack fans like Tyler and this proofs me once more, that he should write his rock-songs instead of wasting a whole orchestra.

At least the movie was not overscored, I'd say there was only about 50 minutes of "real" music... but that only means, the spotting was pretty bad, too.
:twisted: :evil:

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AndyDursin
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#2 Post by AndyDursin »

Hmm.....I don't doubt that the score is bad, though I'm looking forward to seeing the movie just based on the visuals in the trailer (yeah, I know, maybe that's all it is, but hey, it's better than HIDE AND SEEK, right?).

To me, Brian Tyler is right up with there with Marco Beltrami (sorry Roman) and all of these other guys who produce formula scores completely undistinguishable from one another. TIMELINE wasn't bad, it was stylishly packaged, but it's all gloss and has no memorable motifs or anything else going for it (unlike Goldsmith's score). In that regard, I felt it was exactly like Beltrami's I ROBOT -- I couldn't remember a thing about it after the movie was over.

Generally speaking, all of these scores they write are probably just what the filmmakers want, they're all basic formulaic film scores. No surprises, nothing unique about them, and nothing that would make you want to hear the music again in any context.

Badelt did a nice job with PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN, though who knows if Zimmer lent him the main theme. Badelt's TIME MACHINE sounded like a hack rip off of the "Survivor" main theme, and CATWOMAN was awful.

Eric W.
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#3 Post by Eric W. »

The movie looks abysmal. I'm TOTALLY not surprised that the score sucks, too. Andy spoke my thoughts exactly on the matter.

I'm amazed at the number of people that keep putting over Badelt's Pirates score. I don't get that at all. That's one of the most blatant examples I've seen of "miscasting" a compser on a project in recent times, at least. And it was the bland, all too typical Media Ventures approach.

I'm sorry, but I would have rather have had John Debney's Cutthroat Island score re-used outright vs. Badelt's score for that movie. Even that would have been worlds better and more appropriate.

At least Debney's score would be used on a good movie at that rate. ;)

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AndyDursin
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#4 Post by AndyDursin »

I'm amazed at the number of people that keep putting over Badelt's Pirates score. I don't get that at all. That's one of the most blatant examples I've seen of "miscasting" a compser on a project in recent times, at least. And it was the bland, all too typical Media Ventures approach.
It worked OK for me. I can hum the main theme and it seemed there was a good amount of energy in that score. I do agree an orchestral score would have been preferable, but I've never been a big fan of Debney's CUTTHROAT ISLAND. That score was all over the map and sounded like a temp track, a pastiche with little tying everything together (of course you can say the same for PIRATES, but of all the Media Ventures scores, I prefer that one for some odd reason. There's no accounting for taste!).

romanD
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#5 Post by romanD »

I thought that PIRATES's score worked quite well in the movie, the CD nevertheless was put together horribly and repetitive and basically the same as THE RCOK... of course, a score by Silvestri would have been better to it, but still, it worked, had some drive and the maintheme works good, especially when Johnny Depp gets off his ship at the harbor... :-)

Big NO-NO to put Tyler in a league with Beltrami. Tyler has nothing really in his scores , which sets him apart from the other young composers... but again, I may understand why you don't like Beltrami (for not writing thematic and such), but Beltrami's orchestrations are very much his own. I can immediately tell if it is a score by Beltrami or not... he has certain phrases and instruments, that only he uses. He definitely has his own style and is not coyping anyone else. Whereas Tyler does and has no own style. Besides that Tyler approaches each movie and each scene with the same instruments, same seize of orchestra and same ways... you can't tell whether his music is for a monster attack, an attack on a castle or a car chase...

I don't say with this, that you have to like Beltrami, I just want to clarify the differences between Beltrami and the others... at least Beltrami has his own voice! And I can't believe you can hear this!

Regarding CONSTANTINE: I guess I'd judge on the movie differently when (if) I see it a second time. I was just expecting something else...
I don't know whether I really will watch it again, but there is definitely a lot which they could explore in a sequel and I will certainly watch one.
They should just make clear what kind of movie it should be: A supernatural Dedective Film noir or Matrix meets Fantasy...

and let Young score it! :lol:

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AndyDursin
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#6 Post by AndyDursin »

I don't say with this, that you have to like Beltrami, I just want to clarify the differences between Beltrami and the others... at least Beltrami has his own voice! And I can't believe you can hear this!
That's a fair point Roman. As you said, his music is generally non-thematic so frankly it doesn't appeal to me. I can understand your point, and might possibly agree with you if I had any Beltrami albums and paid more attention to his style. It's just when I'm watching a film he's scoring, I find that his music typically does little to elevate the quality of the drama -- whether he has his own voice or not.

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