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Review of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (Hans Zimmer/Tom Holkenborg/Various)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you have abandoned all hope that Hans Zimmer can, with
his hoard of ghostwriters and their infinite sound design technologies,
write a superhero score that actually functions properly in its thematic
interplay, and you simply accept his music for the genre for what it is:
a mindless means of increasing testosterone levels.
Avoid it... on the pitiful "Deluxe" version of the soundtrack album if you expect to hear any of the film's more interesting cues not included on the regular product; instead, you receive an additional 19 minutes of mostly useless, atmospheric crap.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice: (Hans
Zimmer/Tom Holkenborg/Various) Just as the Marvel Cinematic Universe has
officially lost all creative control of itself in the pursuit of cheap
profits, so has sunk the DC Comics universe as well, its famous anchors
of Batman and Superman sharing the screen for the first time in 2016's
much maligned Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. The Zack Snyder
follow-up to the re-envisioned Superman movie Man of Steel from
2013 reboots the Batman concept on screen yet another time and expands
its fanboy enthusiasm for the universe, not to mention merchandising
potential, by introducing several auxiliary DC characters in its
haphazard storyline. Gone from any of these movies is the sense of
unbridled heroism in an optimistic sense, the brooding of everyone
involved so prevalent that one must once again commend The Lego
Movie for appropriately poking fun at the surly demeanor of this
era's superhero, both in its Batman's spoken lines and in the silly,
intentionally hateful song that accompanies him. When you consider the
battles of ridiculously epic proportions being proposed in these
superhero movies, the nastiness conveyed by their distrusting and
distrusted characters, and, by the time of Batman v Superman: Dawn of
Justice, open expression of humanity's xenophobic political response
to yesterday's bright saviors, particularly Superman in this case, one
cannot help but understand why so many angry American men are actually
voting for Donald Trump for president during this time. Movies like
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice feed off of the population's
frustrations with the positive side of establishment figures, forcing
heroes to lose their dichotomy and expose their supposedly normal
selves, the Bruce Waynes and Clark Kents, as being a fair dose as
nasty as the villains they fight. The plot of Batman v Superman: Dawn
of Justice doesn't really matter except to say reiterate the need
for studio profits, and the formula unfortunately continues to work, the
film netting good (though not spectacular) grosses despite widespread
disgust or dismissal from critics. These films are all process and
little true character or style, and many audiences clearly don't
care.
It should come as no surprise that the music for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, like that for Man of Steel, is equally about formulaic process and possesses, as expected, minimal character or style. Despite the efforts of Danny Elfman, Patrick Doyle, James Horner, and, to a lesser extent, Brian Tyler, to bring some semblance of musical intelligence to the comic book adaptations of this age, the genre remains dominated by Hans Zimmer and his Remote Control music production company. The dark, animosity-riddled vision of the superhero realm created by Snyder has a symbiotic relationship with the equally oppressive and dispiriting tone coming from Zimmer and his team of ghostwriters for these films, and many enthusiasts of the composer's aggressively morbid handling of the genre will argue that the man is simply providing filmmakers and audiences what they want to hear. The score for Man of Steel, composed by Zimmer in conjunction with his preferred team of collaborators for that moment, was met with glee from young male listeners who, largely, had appreciated his music for the Christopher Nolan Batman Begins trilogy. Film music critics, meanwhile, lambasted Zimmer and Man of Steel nearly uniformly, yielding a rare moment of near total convergence of professional opinion. Intriguingly, critical reactions to Batman v Superman have been similar, though not quite as negative, and the mass of those young men who typically embrace everything from Zimmer may be starting to reluctantly agree that the formula's execution, at least this time, has grown tired and lacks inspiration. Reuniting with Zimmer from Man of Steel for Batman v Superman is Tom Holkenborg (otherwise known as Junkie XL), who is fresh off of the absolutely hideous, explosively flatulent superhero score for Deadpool and yet is defended by Zimmer in every regard despite his clear lack of knowledge about how to handle this genre. Meanwhile, typical Zimmer ghostwriters Steve Mazzaro, Andrew Kawczynski, and Benjamin Wallfisch join the party to contribute adaptations of thematic ideas or contribute mind-numbing sound design. Of course, the patented Zimmer collaboration process doesn't allow listeners to really evaluate who was responsible for what in these scores, and that's not Zimmer's concern. He simply wants to have fun creating film scores even if the result of his group-think process continues to be utterly dysfunctional. Zimmer reportedly labored over the strategy of tackling Batman v Superman for months before ultimately producing the only result that film music collectors already expected to hear. Listening to the man describe the agony of his creative process in each his interviews for these types of pictures is astonishingly perplexing, the media hype surrounding his answers bloated beyond all reasonable expectations. It remains disturbing just how much the composer claims to struggle to find inspiration and then, in the end, leans on his collaborators to help flesh out the same simplistic musical constructs and renderings each time. For Batman v Superman, at least you can get the impression that there was a more concerted effort to map out the themes of the DC universe. Zimmer was intent upon discarding his underdeveloped Batman theme from his Nolan films, which is actually something of a disappointment considering how obnoxious his new theme for the character's forceful side reveals itself to be. The two main identities of Superman from Man of Steel, the two-note rising phrases for the heroic element and the softer piano melody for his adoptive family, return to the best of the ability of Zimmer and his ghostwriting clones. Batman's new identity is led by a pounding series of notes, always led by one longer note and four in succession afterwards. All of them are on key, of course, because that's Remote Control methodology at its finest. Sometimes there's a sixth note appended to the line for whatever reason. The score brutally shoves this theme down your throat right at the outset of "Beautiful Lie" and proceeds to utilize it as a rhythmic tool throughout the score. Bruce Wayne's many lamentations receive a more reasonable though too distant melody that is basically sufficient but ruined for the finely-tuned Zimmer-collector's ear because its descending counterpoint line (1:10 into "Beautiful Lie" and 7:26 into "Black an Blue") is a long and direct lift from Tears of the Sun. Trying to save the day is a cameo by Jerry Goldsmith, whose theme from the finale of Alien, performed most frequently on lonesome trumpet (imagine that!) graces the score three or four times to represent a common bond between the two lead protagonists in their connection to their mothers. Despite poor mixing, the idea is intelligently interwoven in that regard, helping bring the two characters together ultimately, but it still makes you wonder if the galactic threats to humanity suggested in this move are of the famed Alien variety. Let's hope so. While the Wayne/Kent thematic material in Batman v Superman is halfway decent and, thankfully, rather plentiful, all things considered, the identities for the actual superhero alter egos continue to disappoint. The Superman theme will not thrill some listeners as it did in "Flight" from the prior score, its muted presence best exemplified by the rather tepid opening of "Men Are Still Good." The Kent family idea is underplayed on the album compared to in the film. As for Batman, the question remains as to why Zimmer has to pound away at his notes to express anything even remotely important. Such techniques are holdovers from the 1990's, especially when the ensemble of players is mixed to sound inauthentic, and all you have to do is revisit something from Zimmer's heyday, like "Hate" from Point of No Return to find a much better enunciated version of the same general technique. There eventually has to be an end to the incessantly pounded phrases of notes in these scores. It dates back more than a decade for Zimmer, of course, and includes his famous "horn of doom" effect from Inception and others. This soundtrack should have been titled Sforzando v Rinforzando: Dawn of Wrist Injuries because the amount of forced accent to notes in the score's major thematic portions is totally ridiculous. You almost wonder if the people keyboarding this rubbish into the computers are literally pounding the keys like a five-year-old, begging fate for a sprained wrist. For those familiar with notation, forget the distinction between one sudden sforzando stab and a sustained rinforzando phrase of emphasized notes. For Zimmer and Remote Control, there needs to be a new notation: "zimforzando." Just pound the shit out of every note and forget the nuances of anything around them! Not surprisingly, the melodic highlights of Batman v Superman are the more subtle expressions that aren't swallowed up by the ambience; even here, insanely derivative elements abound. Aside from the aforementioned Tears of the Sun connections, the cello lines at 4:46 into "Men Are Still Good" can't help but remind you of Elliot Goldenthal's own Batman maneuverings in conjunction with, oddly, the introduction to "Gollum's Song" in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. The formation of sensitivity at 4:35 into "This is My World" recalls Elfman's Real Steel. Zimmer's idea for Lex Luthor is a blatant carryover from Sherlock Holmes and, for whatever reason, applies distorted, highly reverbed low piano that emulates the tango scene from Moulin Rouge. Speaking of Lex Luthor's theme in Batman v Superman, the secondary identities in the score are a mixture of highlights and outright disasters. Luthor's material is summarized in "The Red Capes are Coming" and once again exhibits "zimforzando" pounding at its most primordial, yet another reduction of a complex villain to stupid simplicity regardless of Zimmer's extremely misplaced attempt to lace the idea with creative instrumental colors to represent brilliant insanity and malevolence. Reprised in "Problems Up Here," this theme is ludicrous in its overplayed demeanor and makes one wonder if Zimmer (and yes, this material sounds like pure Zimmer on his own... no ghostwriters here, in all likelihood) was trying to be cute in a 2010's variation of John Williams' take on the villains in the 1977 Superman. Not much more intelligent is the Doomsday theme in "Tuesday" and "Blood of My Blood," which, of course, makes more use of "zimforzando" pounding on key. Surprised? Don't be. Descending lines that extend out of this idea, once again using very low, perhaps distorted piano to denote menace, degenerate into mere sound effects of a grating electronic variety in the former cue. The highlight of the score for most listeners is the rip-snorting motif for Wonder Woman in "Is She With You?" Even here, Batman's "zimforzando" rhythmic hits lead the way for the Wonder Woman theme's one repeating phrase. Zimmer and his team thought the theme was immensely appropriate because it was performed extremely aggressively by a woman on an electric cello. Strangely, though, when heard outside of context, the coolness factor and repetitive insistence built into its presentation make it a better match to represent Luthor. Think about that one for a moment. People like the theme because it actually has a sense of style in an otherwise drab environment, but in this plot, that more complicated thematic line and its performance flair are attributed to the wrong character. The album presentations don't really help with any of these impressions, surely, because so many of the more subtle variations of the Wonder Woman and Superman themes in particular were absent from even the expanded soundtrack product originally released with the film. Listeners can hear nice summaries of the softer Superman material in "Day of the Dead" and "This is My World." Meanwhile, "Beautiful Lie" and "Men are Still Good" substantially represent Batman's themes. Some cues that would suggest solid Batman or Bruce Wayne development, such as "Vigilante," "May I Help You, Mr. Wayne?," and "They Were Hunters," are mostly ambient and represent missed opportunities for poignant development. Perhaps the greatest sin committed by Zimmer, Holkenborg, and their ghostwriters in their approach to Batman v Superman is the mind-boggling lack of interplay between the themes they created. The film literally pits these legends against each other in battle, and despite the fact that the composers wrote all these identities for the characters, none of them substantially battles each other in a musical sense in the score. There are a couple of places, including "Is She With You?," when the pounding rhythm for Batman underlies some other melodic action, but never does the score really follow this logic to a natural end. Such is the problem with these collaborative scores. In Star Wars: The Force Awakens, John Williams eventually begins to find ways to suggest Rey's theme and the Force theme in tandem, just as you would hope to hear. In a score like Batman v Superman, Zimmer and his team are simply having fun throwing musical paint at the walls to see what sticks and adhering to basic sketches when necessary. Nobody is sitting down and ensuring that there is proper thematic evolution and interplay in the work. That should be Zimmer's job, but perhaps that's too much complication to ask for from a Remote Control team effort. That reality is unacceptable, especially for the money these artists are being paid, and it remains a good argument against Zimmer's methodology. The connectivity of the score's structural parts instead relies upon the tone and mix of the instrumental palette, and this is another area of total failure in Batman v Superman. There are interesting instrumental ideas in the work, mainly revolving around solo voices and the trumpet for the common familial lamentation theme, but they are absolutely buried in an otherwise overbearing, bass-heavy mix of strings, brass, percussion, and electronics. Once again, when in doubt, Zimmer addresses the modern superhero with the bass region, performing his minor-key expressions of disillusion with thunderous gravity that groans and broods regardless of whatever good intentions exist in the story. There is no dichotomy in these alter-ego superhero scores anymore, and much of that issue relates to these overly dark, oppressive soundtracks that strive harder and harder to stir the loins of those young male listeners. It's no secret that Zimmer's film music is the only variety in the genre that receives humorously ridiculous but strikingly persistent fanboy insistence that it serves as a cure for erectile dysfunction. It is sad testimony confirming that the simplicity of the tone that Zimmer, and by association, all his collaborators supply to these scores is reaching the lowest common denominator. Before dispatching the commentary of this review to the dismay of these testicularly-guided Zimmer enthusiasts, it must also be stated that Batman v Superman contains some of Remote Control's most outrageously heinous sound design since Steve Jablonsky's famously awful, MRI machine-like Battleship. There is speculation that Holkenborg and ghostwriter Andrew Kawczynski were responsible for the trash in "Must There Be a Superman?" and beyond, but it doesn't matter in the end who wrote such ear-piercing torture. It's bad enough that so many of the orchestral sessions in this work have been edited to sound like 1990's synthetic variants of the same performers. To encounter blatant effects editing of the variety inhabiting the worst corners of Batman v Superman is an insulting disappointment. To add even more misery to the equation with this score is WaterTower Music's album situation. As per usual, the Zimmer media blitz led to a regular, 72-minute presentation and an expanded "Deluxe" version with an extra 19 minutes. For whatever reason, in that extra 19 minutes are not the film's melodic highlights missing from the other 72 minutes. Instead you get three useless ambient cues bracketed by the terrible Doomsday material in "Blood of My Blood" and more pointless, badly manipulated action music in "Fight Night" that sounds like a poor imitation of Don Davis' music from The Matrix franchise. The expanded version is thus an absolute waste of money. Along with the other highlights still missing from the albums is the Man of Steel sketchbook and "Launch" material shamelessly tracked into the end credits of Batman v Superman. Overall, this is yet another score that was all Zimmer hype and little in delivered success. Praise him and his team for trying to infuse some thematic intelligence into this franchise, but the results are too muddied by the score's haphazard attention span and gloomy mixing to yield a positive result. After the release of this score and film, Zimmer claimed publicly that he would retire from the superhero genre. Given that his best results in the prior ten years came in dramas and animated children's films, that is a welcome prospect. But he's "threatened" to retire similarly once before, then going on a tour and coming back refreshed and ready for the next round of "zimforzando" superhero pounding on key. There are many listeners awaiting his rediscovery of the stylish, evocative, and personable music that led to his success in the 1990's, much of which achieving greatness without the need for endless ghostwriters who, although fun for him to work with, usually sully the final product. It's time to hit the "OFF" button on the remote control.
TRACK LISTINGS:
Regular Edition:
Total Time: 71:55
Deluxe Edition: Total Time: 91:08
NOTES & QUOTES:
The inserts of both albums include a list of performers. The digipak packaging of the
"Deluxe" edition also contains a miniature poster and an expanded booklet featuring a long
interview with Zimmer and Holkenborg about the process of creating the score.
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The reviews and other textual content contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Christian Clemmensen at Filmtracks Publications. All artwork and sound clips from Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice are Copyright © 2016, WaterTower Music, Sony Classical (International) and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 4/2/16 (and not updated significantly since). Somewhere in the world, a young Zimmer fanboy is vigorously utilizing the "zimforzando" technique in his masturbation routine. |
