Filmtracks Traffic Rank: #569
Written 5/8/04, Revised 10/11/11
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Buy it... if you respect Brian Tyler's intriguing thriller work
during the period of his emergence and would therefore be interested in
an intelligent, rhythmic suspense score for orchestra and solo voice
that outshines its film.
Avoid it... if the score's pretty but underwhelming
pseudo-religious tones, as well as its stock horror material, were among
the reasons why you found fault with the film's wishy-washy sense of
purpose.
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| Tyler |
Godsend: (Brian Tyler) What's worse, cloning your
dead child and eventually discovering that he is the spawn of demon seed
or making a really horrible movie about it? A universal pounding was
delivered to Godsend when it was released in theatres in 2004,
not just from critics, but from audiences seeking intelligent
examinations of a viable and emotional social issue. Attempting to merge
the ideas of A.I. Artificial Intelligence and The Omen
into one not-so-pretty picture, Godsend tells the dubious story
of an average Northeastern couple whose eight-year-old is killed in a
freak accident and who, without thinking much about the consequences,
turn their lives over to Robert DeNiro's "Godsend Institute" so that the
child can be cloned and grow up all over again. It's funny that
anti-cloning groups heavily protested the film, because its story
predictably teaches viewers that the clone will be extremely
psychologically disturbed and do horrible things, in effect reinforcing
the voices against the potential practice. Additionally, the movie can't
seem to decide where to take its religious implications (especially with
the child being named Adam), and if you are unhappy about the ending,
then rest assured that director Nick Hamm (whose career included no
significant hits at the time) shot no less than seven alternate endings
in which one or two of the parents is killed by the child in multiple
ways, and there is even a total blood bath in which everyone dies. What
great entertainment! Composer Brian Tyler was already no stranger to
either the horror genre or the realm of substandard films in 2004. His
mainstream career, in fact, got started with both, and while most fans
discovered Tyler with his monumental Children of Dune television
score the previous year, that period included a few earlier thriller
works that had already piqued the interest of film score collectors. If
Timeline was any indication by itself, Tyler wasn't phased by the
low quality of the films on which he worked, and even in Godsend
you hear the same attention to detail and complicated constructs that
make his material interesting to his listeners. A half a dozen names of
composers, if not more, could have been mentioned as usual suspects when
it comes to scoring films like Godsend, and most of them would
probably have produced drab, underdeveloped ambience suitable for the
quality of the film. Fortunately, Tyler's take on the project at least
has some heart and substance.
While Tyler was somewhat restrained by the genre of
Godsend in terms of outward melody and melodramatic depth, he
still delivers a surprisingly tonal, varied, and interesting score. He
accomplishes this feat through a constantly heightened level of movement
in nearly every cue. Instead of building tension through disharmony in
lengthy whole notes, Tyler creates suspense through the quick procession
of alternating ostinatos, the rhythms throughout
Godsend keeping
it light on its feet while also utilizing enough disharmony to suffice
for the picture's thriller element. By establishing a pseudo-religious,
angelic sound for the boy and mutating that sound throughout the score,
Tyler is perhaps somewhat responsible for critics and viewers raising
unanswered questions about religion in the film; there are several
pretty and tender thematic sequences for strings, piano, and yearning
solo voice that add a tangible dimension to the religious questions. The
false promise of the cloning process receives one of the most
inspirational choral treatments of beauty in "To Godsend." Don't seek
Godsend if, however, you expect lengthy passages of pleasantries
from strings, piano, and voice, because the score also includes its fair
share of derivative crashing about in standard atonal fashion for the
horror genre. The blasting seems to be emphasized in the last several
cues on the album presentation (which is not in film order, perhaps for
this reason), and, for the most part, this is stock genre material for
the brass and percussion. There are only so many ways you can rattle a
cymbal up to a crescendo and give it a good slap at the end. But if you
are a fan of Tyler's music during this period of emergence, then the
rhythmic portions of
Godsend will keep you engaged. Established
in the opening titles, the pulsating rhythm in the minor key, sometimes
accented by light electronic choral effects laid over the top in an
alternating major key, serves to represent the technological and
biological aspects of the story well. The application of this rhythm in
"To Godsend" is performed with the sound of a beating heart (of sorts,
perhaps intentional), and Tyler manages to balance the hope of
restoration in early cues with the ominous undertones of evil in the
multiple facets of this rhythm. Overall, the album for
Godsend
runs a bit long at 67 minutes, with roughly 20 minutes of remarkably
accessible, suspenseful underscore surrounded by stock horror methods
and redundant ambience. An excellent suite of ideas from the score is
coordinated in "Godsend End Titles." For a film this bad, Tyler's score
may be the one godsend to be gleaned from it, and only the lack of a
better album arrangement restrains it from a fourth star.
*** @Amazon.com: CD or
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Bias Check:
For Brian Tyler reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.2
(in 41 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.13
(in 19,742 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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