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Review of Renaissance Man (Hans Zimmer)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you dig Hans Zimmer's early electronic jazz stylings
and want to hear a well-balanced, dynamic merging of his synthetics with
an orchestra.
Avoid it... if parody march music for dumb military settings tries your patience after only 30 seconds.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Renaissance Man: (Hans Zimmer) It was rare at the
time for director Penny Marshall to miss the mark completely, for her
films were typically so whimsically fluffy and enjoyable in an
undemanding sense. That changed with Renaissance Man, a misfire
about personal inspiration that takes an ordinary civilian and puts him
in charge of teaching the Army's most hopelessly dumb and difficult
recruits. The premise alone is ridiculous beyond comprehension,
especially when Danny DeVito as the teacher decided to turn around the
recruits using Shakespeare's "Hamlet" and "Henry V." Perhaps the most
embarrassing moment in any film during the 1990's came when the misfits,
led by Marky Mark, performed a synopsis of "Hamlet" in rap. A healthy
dose of logical fallacies, as well as overly-predictable plot
foreshadowing and cliched grasps at other films' messages, led
Renaissance Man to failure at the box office. Collaborating once
again with Marshall was composer Hans Zimmer, whose career was about to
launch itself to an Oscar win and a co-owned composition studio and
training center eventually described with not-so-polite words by many
older film score collectors. In listening to the score for
Renaissance Man, you can't help but get the impression that
Zimmer was placing most of his efforts at the time on the concurrent
The Lion King, undoubtedly a wise move. Not even the concept of
the music for Renaissance Man would be original, with Robert Folk
tackling In the Army Now at roughly the same time for a similar
style of film. But whereas Folk took a completely orchestral and
accomplished parody style into that equally doomed project, Zimmer would
stay well within the realm of his own synthetic/orchestral blend that
was still in its more hip and tolerable stages. Zimmer's early career
was defined by electronics in a contemporary sense, merging jazz, light
rock, and new age styles into scores that often served as fantastic
listening experiences outside of the film. Chronologically speaking,
Renaissance Man would be one of the last times he would make a
fully wholesale use of those stylings before his career would turn away
from Marshall's kind of films.
In retrospect, there's a freshness about Zimmer's contemporary jazz and light rock music that is sadly missing from his late 90's and 00's scores. There exists a dramatic tilt to some of that sound in Renaissance Man, with Zimmer's tendency to drift towards the statement of dramatic anthems carrying parts of Toys over into this effort, but the ultimately cool, comedic nature of Renaissance Man would allow Zimmer to let loose with music that speaks far more towards his roots. He has become so removed from this free-spirited sound in the succeeding decade that scores like this and The Preacher's Wife, ones that merge the orchestra with his electronics with a rarely-heard positive spin in the era, gain a certain attraction over time. It's as close as Zimmer ever came to John Debney's similar handling of such films, with a few Debney-like swings of theme to be heard in Renaissance Man. When it debuted, the score seemed so trite and predictable, almost as though Zimmer literally was slamming together a score as quickly as possible. And in many respects, the score still suffers from those weaknesses; the military cues range from funny to obnoxious. The solemn spirit in "Benitez Does Henry," with that trademark Zimmer trumpet work floating in the distance, raises direct quotations from the dramatic speech in Toys. "Stay With Me," conversely, uses varied brass in a faux John Philip Sousa style of march that quickly becomes annoying (the parade atmosphere would eventually be ripped in full in "Everyone is a Hero"). Defying description is the end of "Letter from Home," which introduces the moronic recruits with a bastardized army chant over a wild rock rhythm. The highlights of the score are the light keyboarded jazz heard in "Welcome to the Army," "Serving Your Country," and "Victory Starts Here," all of which are more introspective in a soothing, contemporary sense. The latter cue is worthy of any compilation of early Zimmer works, especially with its well-mixed brass backing, and it's one of the somewhat rare moments when there exists a perfect, dynamic balance between Zimmer's electronics and the orchestra. The final cue on the album is the rap version of "Hamlet" heard in the film, and while it's probably a necessary inclusion to make the album complete, it will seal the album's fate for some. ***
TRACK LISTINGS:
Total Time: 29:18
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 Renaissance Man are Copyright © 1994, Varèse Sarabande and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 8/6/99 and last updated 4/22/07. |
