Chappie - Hans Zimmer, Steve Mazzaro, Andrew Kawczynski
Frequently entertaining, but not quite as innovative as its concept demands.
Chappie sees director Neill Blomkamp return to his native Johannesburg for another tale of near-future dystopia, this time focusing on a police robot who is captured and reprogrammed to think and feel for himself. The titular Chappie (Sharlto Copley) displays childlike wonder at the world around him, discovering it as a newborn would and adapting to his new consciousness along the way. Some people, however, begin to perceive his existence as a threat to society and its order, and Chappie quickly becomes a target of the police. Following the success of District 9 and the mixed reception of Elysium, Blomkamp presses further onward into his distinctive style of sci-fi realism and, with Chappie, he continues to interrogate many of the same themes we've seen addressed in his previous works. Socio-economic inequity, the ugliness of humanity, critiques of police tactics, gang culture, you name it.
Given the director's progression of composers, it seems only logical that Neill Blomkamp and Hans Zimmer would cross paths somewhere along the way. His films' scores have increasingly neared Zimmer's in style and, though composers Ryan Amon (Elysium), Chris Clark, and Rich Walters were originally announced to compose for Chappie, it is no big surprise that Zimmer ended up with the gig. With additional music by Bullet to the Head's Steve Mazzaro and Andrew Kawczynski, who both collaborated with Zimmer on The Amazing Spider-Man 2, the score is a wholly electronic endeavor, straddling the line between 80's synth throwback and Zimmer's modern blockbuster sound. There are noticeable Vangelis influences, action moments reminiscent of some of Zimmer early 90's scores, and sweeping electronics in the vein of M83. As a whole, Chappie never reaches new thematic heights, nor does it innovate enough to be considered truly experimental, but it's a decent score with some entertaining moments.
Right from the start, in "It's a Dangerous City", Chappie wears its influences on its sleeve. You'll hear Black Rain, The Dark Knight and The Last Samurai in spades, albeit in amped-up, electronic form. Many of the score's motifs seem like close cousins to these works, albeit on Blade Runner synth-brass instead of Zimmer's usual churning strings. Indeed, Zimmer and his cohorts utilize a fully-electronic, occasionally videogame-like palette to represent the world Blomkamp has created for Chappie. "Use Your Mind", "You Lied to Me", "Never Break a Promise", and "The Outside is Temporary" exemplify the best of the score's buzzing and pulsating momentum, with the latter boasting an energetic performance of the score's main theme. "A Machine that Thinks and Feels" features a techno-lullaby rendition of that theme, addressing the childlike nature of the titular robot. For cues like the energetic "Mayhem Downtown", a raucous action set-piece complete with distorted male choir a la Bane , it's as if Zimmer phoned up himself from his early Bruckheimer days to make a contribution. A lot of the meandering Blade Runner-esque material works well, as do some of the composers' more experimental cues (like "We Own This Sky" and the 8-bit/dubstep "Illest Gangsta On the Block"). The rest is not bad per se, it's just not as interesting or different as something like "We Own This Sky", a cue combining Morricone whistling with Vangelis's driving synths.
In the end, Chappie is a bit of a mixed bag: occasionally it seems like Zimmer and his cohorts are really innovating, while at other times it seems like they're dishing out music on autopilot. For cues like "The Outside is Temporary", "Mayhem Downtown", "A Machine that Thinks and Feels", and "We Own This Sky," it's decently engaging stuff, but other tracks simply wander through material we've heard before in far better iterations. There is a decent amount to like about what Zimmer and friends are going for here even if, at times, the heart of this story seems to get lost in the constant pulsating loops. It might grow on you as it grew on me, but don't expect it to reach the heights or depth of something like Interstellar.
A Few Recommended Tracks: "A Machine that Thinks and Feels", "Mayhem Downtown", "The Outside Is Temporary", "Never Break a Promise", "We Own This Sky", "Illest Gangsta On the Block"
Label: Varese Sarabande
Availability: 16-track edition
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Kingsman: The Secret Service - Henry Jackman & Matthew Margeson
A ferociously fun marriage of Kick-Ass and super-spy bravado.
With Kingsman: The Secret Service, director Matthew Vaughn (Kick-Ass, X-Men: First Class) brings his trademark, stylized action and irreverent humor to the spy genre. The film stars Taron Egerton as Gary "Eggsy" Unwin, a street punk who is recruited by super spy Harry Hart (Colin Firth) into the ranks of an elite agency known as the Kingsman. The film was largely a critical success and audiences have been eating it up for its over-the-top thrills and subversive wit. In an industry recently governed by Nolan's morose Batman and Craig's tormented Bond, Kingsman has been hailed as a return to form for the "fun blockbuster".
Scoring the film are Vaughn's frequent collaborators Henry Jackman (X-Men: First Class) and Matthew Margeson (Kick-Ass 2), who bring a youthful energy and cheeky heroism to the film's music. The two composers, who collaborated most significantly on the Vaughn-produced Kick-Ass 2, have a blast with this score, constructing a thoroughly entertaining main theme and writing quite a bit of high-octane action music. After listening to it, you can just imagine the director's feedback: "More fun! More energy! More fun! More energy!" And that's not a bad thing at all.
"Manners Maketh Man" starts the score off with an energetic performance of the main theme, complete with a retro-orchestral stinger at 0:28. The score contains a lot of these moments meant to be reminiscent of classic spy scoring (campy stingers, vibraphone, emphasis on guitar, etc.), but it never completely abandons Jackman and Margeson's modern sound. "Medallion" offers a quiet moment that builds to a sweeping crescendo of the main theme and "Valentine" introduces the curious sound of the film's villain, Richmond Valentine (Samuel L. Jackson), a mix of a major-key woodwind and deep electronics. "To Become A Kingsman" builds on an ostinato motif of the first six notes of the main theme, before erupting into a bold rendition of the theme itself. If it's not apparent by now, Jackman and Margeson's main theme really dominates this score, though a "b-theme" occasionally appears for the Kingsman, as in the latter half of "To Become A Kingsman". Things turn slightly foreboding in "To Pick A Puppy", before a determined performance of the b-theme takes center state, balanced by horn phrases at 1:30 strongly reminiscent of Jackman's material for the Falcon in Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
We return to Valentine's ominous meandering in "Drinks with Valentine" before the excitement gets ramped up again in "Skydiving", a suitably thrilling piece that gets increasingly hectic in its latter half (with some excellent brass-work). Valentine's electronics lurk back into the forefront of "Shame We Had to Grow Up", while tapping cymbal and breathy woodwinds lend the cue a cheeky suaveness. "Curious Scars and Implants" continues in this vein and then gives way to weighty drama in the surprisingly emotional "Toast to a Kingsman" and ethereal vocals in "An 1815 Napoleonic Brandy". "Eat, Drink, and Paaaaarty" balances Valentine's material and Jackman's Falcon-esque brass writing, carrying the score to its standout action cue, "Calculated Infiltration", a raucous and thrilling piece that really heats up in its final three minutes. It's a hell of a lot of fun and Jackman and Margeson manage to get a ton of mileage out of their different motifs here, all propelled by Jackman's rapid-fire style of action writing. After a little more action in "Hand on the Machine", "Finale" sends the score off with an electric guitar-driven piece more heavily reminiscent of Kick-Ass than anything else in the score.
Kingsman: The Secret Service ultimately amounts to a great deal of fun and, for that, most listeners will be able to forgive its faults. While the score occasionally veers one way more than the other, Kingsman strikes an effective balance between cheeky parody and earnest celebration of its influences, and Jackman and Margeson clearly have a blast doing so. I still prefer Kick-Ass 2 by a hair, but Kingsman: The Secret Service offers a worthwhile companion piece to that score and, at around 46 minutes long, a perfectly paced one too.
A Few Recommended Tracks: "To Become a Kingsman", "Pick A Puppy", "Toast to a Kingsman", "Calculated Infiltration"
Label: La-La Land