Filmtracks: Dark Phoenix (Hans Zimmer/Various)

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Written 11/19/19

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Dark Phoenix: (Hans Zimmer/Various) In the final years of 20th Century Fox's control over the "X-Men" concept on screen, the studio extended one last sequel in its already once rebooted series of films related to the famed mutants. Of the twelve films in the nearly 20-year-old franchise, 2019's Dark Phoenix is the most monumental failure. It has been projected to cost Fox more than $100 million in losses, a product of oversaturation and the immense misfortune of a production schedule at odds with Disney's acquisition of Fox and formal merging of the "X-Men" films into their own Marvel Cinematic Universe. The post-production of Dark Phoenix was a nightmare years in the making, in part because Disney's late involvement required a different direction for the film if only for their own narrative desires. The story of the movie is a rather pointless revisitation of the Jean Grey/Phoenix corner of the "X-Men" realm, the events of 2006's X-Men: The Last Stand conveniently erased by the prior two films as a logical method of milking more money out of the franchise with younger actors in the lead roles. With series stalwart Bryan Singer no longer palatable to direct, screenwriter and producer Simon Kinberg steps up to the helm, with disastrous results. For film music enthusiasts, this transition meant the exit of composer John Ottman from the franchise as well, his music one of the few connective tissues surviving both generations of the concept during its run on screen. Instead, we get music producer, marketer extraordinaire, and occasional composer Hans Zimmer for an orphaned entry that defies his pledge from 2016 to permanently remove himself from the superhero genre. After some prodding by friend Ron Howard, Zimmer rethought his decision and agreed to seek out superhero scores if they spoke to his heart. For whatever reason, Dark Phoenix did just that, and he dove into the nightmare of a project that ultimately yielded about 16 hours of recorded music from his Remote Control Productions clone army. Roughly a dozen ghostwriters assisted Zimmer in what he deemed a band-like experience of creating music for the film, though Steve Mazzaro, David Fleming, and Andy Page served in the lead contributor roles. (To his credit, Zimmer did put all twelve names on the cover of his second album of music from the picture.)

The result of this massive Remote Control group think is a remarkably unremarkable film score for Dark Phoenix, a standalone new age experience that once again reinforces Zimmer's role in the industry as a marquee name rather than a convincing provider of truly nuanced and effective film music in context. For the avid Zimmer collector (or apologist, depending upon how you look at his position in the industry), this music is a somewhat stylish extension of his established baseline of dreary superhero ambience, his themes extremely simplistic in composition and their rendering lacking any non-repetitive, intelligent layering. It's tempting to write off the album presentation of Dark Phoenix as a standard new age Remote Control jam, but the tracks as presented on the primary product are, in many cases, nearly identical to what is used in the film. Zimmer seems to have fully embraced the process used especially in Europe of writing suites of music to represent concepts in a film and then let the music editors sort out the placement in the actual movie. For a superhero film, that's a very dubious prospect. Zimmer also chose to abandon everything established by Ottman for the franchise, including his main theme. Perhaps that identity was too "jolly" for his sensibilities. In fact, anything resembling heroism is gone from the equation here, Zimmer gleefully revolving the score around three general identities consisting of dreary brooding (the main theme), sad brooding (the Phoenix theme), and angry brooding (the Magneto theme). All of these things dwell firmly in the bass region with singular layers sometimes occupying high octaves above; a significant lack of care in the midrange layers seems to prevail. The most amazing attribute of Zimmer's themes for Dark Phoenix is how juvenile and self-absorbed they are. The main theme, for instance, is a way-too-long line of note pairs that move with so much saturated deliberation that Zimmer clearly expects listeners to be amazed by each shifting chord. Likewise, the Magneto theme is literally pounded in nearly every instance, its progressions only slightly more complicated. These themes are ridiculously simplistic and devoid of meaningful variation. The Phoenix theme does lend itself to more emotional range, though even this idea is surprisingly constricted. At times when Zimmer's crew overlaps themes, they persist in only their base styles, making them very transparent but not enhancing the narrative with any sense of depth.

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There are a few benefits to Zimmer and team's bonehead thematic structures in Dark Phoenix, led by not only the absurdly simple progressions but also the memorability factor. In some ways, it helps that the three main themes are similarly repeated in a majority of the tracks. And, perhaps most importantly to fans, the themes are certainly easy listening on album, assuming you take your gourmet brooding with a side of synth and electric guitar. The morbid tone of the score is overproduced and overwrought in most cues, the weight consistently grim and befitting a disturbing doomsday topic far less fantastic than an "X-Men" film. A comparison between Zimmer's finished product and his concept suites shows that any orchestral performances in Dark Phoenix were pointless because the atmosphere of his synthetic renderings yield the dominant personality here whether intended or not. If you're going to write generic muck like this, after all, why bother hiring live players? One nice touch by the team is a range of vocals for Phoenix that attempts to infuse some genuine heart into the score. Sadly, the actual rendering is highly reminiscent of either Graeme Revell's The Saint or, humorously enough, James Horner's Titanic. There are also a fair number of keyboarded passages meant to beef up the familial aspect of all the characters, but this element gets lost in the mix more often than not. Zimmer certainly shouldn't win brownie points from anybody for applying a slurring electric guitar to anything related to energy or lightning or, in this case, Magneto. In the case of the electrical edge and vocalizations, Zimmer occasionally goes totally experimental, and it's in these blasting or chanting passages that this score ceases being a palatable listening experience on album. The album presentation presented some heartache for Zimmer fans, as the original 68-minute product was missing the end credits music and the concept material that Zimmer had teased about at the release of the film. Typically, the composer is shy about releasing his additional or concept recordings for his products, but he lobbied Fox and Disney hard to get a second album of Dark Phoenix music released, and while he was not initially successful in convincing the studios to press a 2-CD release representing music from a disastrous movie, he did get two lossless digital options presented to fans. The latter, called "Xperiments From Dark Phoenix" and released a few months after the primary album, contains the brief end credits music and almost 77 minutes of concept recordings.

As if the quality of Zimmer and team's output for Dark Phoenix wasn't frustrating enough based on its own merits, the album situation still isn't well suited for fans, either. Assuming that you either appreciate Zimmer's ultra-brood methodology or desire a mind-numbing new age album experience for pleasure, the highlights of the score are split between the two products. The performance of the new main concept theme that opens the first three minutes of "Gap" on the primary album is a genuine reminder of Zimmer's glory days from the early 1990's (still... why can't the man employ an electric guitar nowadays with as much pizazz as in those early years?), but the second best performance of that idea, the end credits cue, is "X-SS" on the "Xperiments" album. Listeners enamored with the theme can hear it woven throughout the score proper, such as at the end of "Intimate" and beginning of "Reckless," but you need the "Xperiments" album to hear it go orgasmic in "X-X," where the obvious Vangelis love is treated to the crowd-pleasing counterpoint of "CheValiers de Sangreal" from The Da Vinci Code. Likewise, if you prefer the main theme in zone-out mode, you'll want the somber "X-TX." (That's a superhero theme? Really?) As for the Phoenix theme, you'll receive the film versions in "Dark" and with better connections to the heart in parts of "Frameshift" and "Insertion." Seek its more brutal variation in "Deletion." Meanwhile, the "Xperiments" album provides this idea in techno form in "X-HZT," the only track attributed solely to Zimmer by one report. This 17-minute concept track is hilariously awful in its whole, proving that Zimmer either has way too much time to enjoy his jam sessions or the man has no idea what to do with his own themes. If you preferred the "Dark" rendition, then "X-LGDP" and "X-MDP" will extend that performance further. You can tell that the team found much allure with the Magneto theme, as it's exercised frequently and with force throughout. It pounds with outright violence in "Frameshift," "Intimate," and "Insertion." If that isn't enough pain for you, then clear out your sinuses with more Magneto suffering in "X-MT" on the "Xperiments" album. Ultimately, it's the main theme that will attract the most casual interest, as the Magneto material is pure testicular magnetism and the Phoenix theme is, despite its consistent applications, too elusive emotionally with which to connect. By contrast, the main theme, while structurally devoid of interest, is at least tonally pleasant and reminiscent of Zimmer's early glory days at enough intervals to merit an appreciable 10 to 15-minute suite.

There are ideas floating about in Dark Phoenix that aren't related to the three main themes, but not so you'd really notice. In fact, don't bother with them unless you have a framed photo of Zimmer in your bedroom. One is an adaptation of English classical composer Henry Purcell (Of course! For an "X-Men" film! Why the hell not?) into a theme of loss that is highlighted in "Amity" and seems to accompany death throughout the film. It informs of the action in "Reckless" and is consulted again in "Coda." For the "Xperiments" album, the idea is reprised with boring results in "X-F." The alien D'Bari villains in the tale receive their own ineffective material in "Negative" and the outset of "Intimate," the former track extended in "X-SI" on the second album. One of the more attractive cues is "Coda," which does a fair job of summarizing two of the main themes and the Purcell/death influence, and an alternate version of this idea is presented on "Xperiments" as "X-CH." Once again, the final minute reveals that the mutants were actually searching for the Holy Grail at the Louvre, at least according to Zimmer and co-jammer David Fleming. So what do we make of all of this Zimmer-hyped madness as usual? Well, it's madness, no doubt, and the self-absorbed type that you expect when the score is about the process rather than the result. The track titles on both albums are less than helpful, the "Xperiments" titles showing that the composer likes playing games that his fans must love to decipher. He includes obnoxious sound effects and recording session noise and vocals on that second album. After all, we can't simply have an extension of music from the film without unnecessarily awesome grinding noises joining tracks and, behold, the voice of Zimmer himself! Given how awful the film turned out to be, it's somewhat disturbing to think about how much effort across Remote Control was put into this soundtrack; there are many far worthier films that could have merited 16 hours of recordings. But that's not what is important to Zimmer. It's all about the RCP JAM, the collaborative process that furthers the striving for ultimate coolness, even if that's not what the film required. There are worse Zimmer works out there, as Widows can certainly prove, but few are as unnecessarily senseless and stupid as Dark Phoenix. Abandoning a franchise's musical identity is tough enough to handle, but to replace it with a juvenile, repetitive, and chest-thumping style befitting the composer rather than the concept is simply unacceptable. All of that said, even those most ardent Zimmer skeptics can assemble a viable suite of the composer's easy-listening anthemic mode from the two albums. Just don't tell your brain you're doing it. @Amazon.com: CD or Download

Music as Written for the Film: *
Music as Heard on the Albums: **
Overall: **

Bias Check:

For Hans Zimmer reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 2.85 (in 128 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 2.96 (in 299,193 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.

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