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FILMTRACKS.COM
PRINTER-FRIENDLY VIEW 
Review of Demolition Man (Elliot Goldenthal)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you love hearing Elliot Goldenthal provide music
several levels more intelligent than the film, either as an outward
parody or by mistake.
Avoid it... if only the gorgeous, Jerry Goldsmith-styled finale cue captured your attention in the film itself.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Demolition Man: (Elliot Goldenthal) Aside from the
fact that it introduced an innocent Sandra Bullock to many movie-goers,
Demolition Man hits nearly every guilty-pleasure button known to
mankind. Among the "violations of the verbal morality code," the
verbiage of "murder death kill," and a villain named "Cocteau," viewers
of Demolition Man are still trying to figure out exactly how to
use the three seashells in place of traditional paper ass-wipes. The
stupidity of the film is oddly compensated for by its purely
tongue-in-cheek zaniness, proving that ridiculously dumb movies can
indeed catch you watching them whenever they come on late night cable
television (though, of course, violations of the verbal morality code
lose all their punch on family-friendly channels). Given how utterly
juvenile a film Demolition Man really is, another amusing irony
is the assignment of composer Elliot Goldenthal to the task of composing
the underscore for the film. Goldenthal is, more than any other
contemporary composer, known by film music collectors as the "thinking
man's composer," an artist whose intellect with orchestral composition
has led him to create a phenomenally unique and smart series of scores
and live performance pieces. While almost always thinking a few levels
above most other composers, Goldenthal also has a tendency to produce
music that isn't readily listenable to the ears of the average mundane
film music listener... or anybody who places much value in the
Titanic score, in other words. In some cases, this intelligence
in film scoring has provided glorious results, from the elegant bombast
of Final Fantasy to the painfully emotional Frida, which
won him an Academy Award for his score. But on the other hand, projects
as bizarre as Titus have served to only polarize film music
collectors because Goldenthal's approach to such work is so outlandishly
creative that you either love it or hate it.
In the case of Demolition Man, Goldenthal does what he does best: over-intellectualizes a score. At some point, you have to recognize that a film not only deserves, but needs a basic score. Goldenthal missed that point with Batman Forever, and definitely misses the point with Demolition Man. Some people argue that a score as varied and creative as Goldenthal's is exactly what a film like Demolition Man needs. Unfortunately for those folks, the only cues that seem to really make sense in the film itself are those that dumb down the equation (by Goldenthal standards). The title theme exists in only one major performance, as Sylvester Stallone approaches his current-day task at the start of the film, the confrontation motif for chopping strings and snare ("Confronting the Chief"), and of course, the lush "Silver Screen Kiss" at the very end... all are notably memorable in the film. This is no surprise, because they all represent action by Stallone, who is a brute from the past, and it's likely that Goldenthal was playing on these primitive flashes of muscle. Sufficing in their role are the two cues for the freezing process, "Guilty as Charged" and "Defrosting," with plucking strings, piano, and harp accented by various banging metallic and wood percussion. But for the rest of the score, Goldenthal is given a license to wail, screech, and produce hard synth rhythms and loops that would make even hardcore electronica fans run screaming. Rhythmic chaos and extraordinarily harsh metallic shades, combined with extremely aggressive unconventional use of traditional orchestra instruments makes Demolition Man a very disjointed and unpredictable venture. As always, Goldenthal employs the wavering horn technique, yielding to the full-blown wailing horns, in the opening cue and "Final Confrontation." How anybody can actually enjoy this brass usage is unknown. Goldenthal seems inclined to use this trilling brass whenever he concludes a finale or crescendo that requires the rest of the ensemble to perform in harmony, and it would go on to downright ruin the title statement in Batman Forever. An extended performance of the "Dies Irae" cue (why should this schlock limit Goldenthal's symphony movement cue titles?), renamed "Main Titles" for the common man, was outstandingly arranged and performed by the Budapest Studio Orchestra for a Germany Edel compilation in 1994 (one of the early collections of mostly the City of Prague Philharmonic before Silva began releasing their recordings more regularly), and they do a great job of incorporating, but moderating Goldenthal's wierdnesses in the cue. The same cue was edited down for the original commercial album. On the whole, Demolition Man is widely heralded as yet another underrated score from the talented composer. Completely out of print and never in competition with the widely run song compilation album, the short score album is very scarce. But sometimes you can be too intelligent for a project, and Goldenthal simply got too damn smart for his own good this time around. It's admittedly as fascinating as any other Goldenthal score, but Demolition Man didn't need or deserve it, and that's why the simplistic, borderline parody cues are the only ones that actually function in the picture. A note to American detainment camps in undisclosed countries: forget hooking up those radical Muslims' testicles to electrode devices... some sleep deprivation using Elliot Goldenthal's Demolition Man will do the job! **
TRACK LISTINGS:
Total Time: 29:56
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert includes no extra information about the score or film.
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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 Demolition Man are Copyright © 1993, Varèse Sarabande and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 10/24/96 and last updated 2/19/06. |
