Saturday, January 1, 2011

Batman Soundtrack Reviews Part 3

Part three in a series of pieces examining the various soundtracks that have accompanied the Batman films from 1989-2008.


Batman Forever
and
Batman and Robin

by Elliot Goldenthal


After the mixed feelings and parental outrages for Batman Returns, Warner Bros. wanted a lighter, sillier sequel. Tim Burton, tiring of the concept anyway, stepped into the role of producer, and Joel Schumacher was hired as director of the third Batman film, bringing with him screenwriters Lee and Janet Batchler and Akiva Goldsman and a whole new cast and crew. Val Kilmer replaced Michael Keaton as the Dark Knight; Tommy Lee Jones replaced Billy Dee Williams as Harvey Dent, now Two-Face; Stephen Goldblatt was cinematographer; and avant-garde composer Elliot Goldenthal would score the film. Joining were Jim Carrey as The Riddler, Nicole Kidman as Batman's love interest, and Chris O'Donnell as Robin.

While Schumacher's over-the-top approach bordering on campy offended some comic book fans, general audiences were vastly entertained. Batman Forever was still a dark film, but it was much lighter and pushed the series much further into fantasy. The writing was much less subtle in its characterizations, with characters pretty much announcing out loud their thoughts, flaws, relationships and complexities (in true comic-book fashion), but these were all well-drawn in their own way. Kilmer was an excellent Batman, Jones and Carrey wildly over-the-top, Kidman ravishing, and O'Donnell a likable Robin. Schumacher also had a strong approach to action scenes; the fights were solid, and the action in general was ambitious, clever, and well shot. None of the action was generic or clumsy. While it wasn't as deep or atmospheric as its predecessors, Batman Forever was more exciting and more fun in its own silly way, and much less uneven.

Batman and Robin, however, was a catastrophe. After the huge box office success of Forever, Warner Bros. wanted to push the commercialism much further -- more villains, more gadgets, more gimmicks, while Schumacher went much, much deeper into his own rabbit hole. The results was an overlong, overstuffed, barely coherent mess that shovelled its camp and effects down the audience's throats. George Clooney's performance as Batman was hollow and bored; you can see his contempt for the silliness throughout, and his approach makes an already problematic film much, much worse. Arnold Schwarzenegger's Mr. Freeze and Uma Thurmond's Poison Ivy were colorful villains, but didn't fit in each other's stories well, and diluted each other; the third villain, Bane, was not only downright offensive to comic book fans (the original character was a brilliant, near-unstoppable assassin; the film reduced him to a brainless muscle-man), but was outright unnecessary. Some imaginative effects and action scenes and good performances from Chris O'Donnell and Michael Gough were wasted in a loud, disjointed, empty film that single-handed killed a powerhouse franchise. The behind-the-scenes documentary on the DVD is remarkably revealing, culminating in Schumacher outright apologizing for disappointing everyone.

Both films were scored by Elliot Goldenthal, a composer known for his strange and original approaches to film scores. While his music wasn't as compelling as Elfman's, it strongly supported both films, and, in the case of Batman and Robin, it is ironically one of the better musical representations of the character.

With Forever, Goldenthal decided for whatever reason to abandon Elfman's brilliant main theme. His own replacement isn't nearly as compelling, but it holds up very well on its own. Like Elfman's, it starts quietely, building up to a powerful climax. The sheer massive force of the trumpets, strings, choir, and electronic tones is awesome, and it's a rousing opening, even if it lacks the complexity and emotion of Elfman's version. As the theme winds down for the opening scene, his music takes an odd interlude into metal clangs and scrapes as Batman suits up. While Goldenthal's weirdness gets overbearing later in the score, in this brief moment, it works nicely. After a few moments, the music builds up to an even more bombastic crescendo, giving the soundtrack (and the film) an epic opening.

The rest of the score is consistently effective in the film, but wildly uneven on album. His romantic theme for Kidman's eccentric psychologist Chase Meridian is an appropriately wandering jazz piece; nicely atmospheric, very noirish. It's a highly original approach to the romantic that works beautifully, and gives a much-needed quiet contrast to the rather loud majority of the tracks.

Robin doesn't really get his own theme, but is usually represented by the heroic main themes. The sequence at the carnival, however, explaining his tragic origin, gets its own track. It's a big, noisy track, sometimes exciting but just as often incoherent.

Goldenthal approaches the villains' henchmen similarly to Elfman, with wacky, high-energy percussion. It's not quite as effective, but it works. The main villain themes, however, are less effective. Two-Face's brassy, ballsy theme tends more toward bombast than anything particularly melodic, but it's nothing compared to the Riddler. "Nygma Variations" is a truly warped work of insanity. There's just no describing the craziness of this chaotic mix of synthetic and orchestral noise. It's like being water boarded with sound rather than water. It's like Goldenthal was trying to somehow match Jim Carrey's onscreen energy and nuttiness, and while he sort of succeeds, it results in a piece so unlistenable it's almost a challenge to sit through the whole thing. Original? Yes. Enjoyable? No. Music? Probably not.

Still, when Goldenthal goes for action, he generally succeeds when he doesn't let it descend into total chaos, and Two-Face's theme ties in nicely with these moments. "Fledermausmerschmusik", "Victory", "Holy Rusted Metal", and "Batterdammerung" are exhilarating pieces. "Batterdammerung" is especially noteworthy, a spectacularly crescendo of falling strings to accompany Batman's climactic jump off a cliff to desperately save both Chase and Robin from the Riddler's final death-trap.

Oddly, the soundtrack is missing the final cues, including that accompanying Batman's defeat of the villains. The last track in the film, a rousing restatement of the Batman theme, would be a much more satisfying endcap than Batterdammerung, thrilling as that may be.

Overall, the soundtrack on CD is a mix of lovely noirish jazz, rousing and heroic action, and loud noise for the sake of noise. The balance, unfortunately, is too much to the latter, and while the music supports the film just fine, it's a frustrating CD.

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Batman and Robin is widely regarded as one of the worst comic-book adaptations in history, and while it's certainly not the worst (or even the worst big-budget one -- that's easily Superman III), it's not a particularly proud addition. But surprisingly enough, it actually has one of the strongest scores of any Batman film, second only to Elfman's Batman.

Right from "Main Titles", the improvement over Forever is apparent. Forever's titles were among its highlights, but even here, Goldenthal reworks it to be more melodic. Further, he adds a choir, giving it an even greater power. Even the metal clangs at the conclusion sound more organized and meaningful. They may be essentially the same notes, but this version is superior. It's an impressive start.

Where the real improvements show are in the villain's themes. Poison Ivy is represented by jazzy saxaphone, backed by "jungle" underscore. It's not the greatest of villain scores, but it's very easy to listen to, and it mixes into other themes very well. The scenes of Ivy and Mr. Freeze plotting are given a sort of waltz, and Ivy's theme works very nicely in this context.

But the highlight of the score is Mr. Freeze's theme. Thanks to Paul Dini and Bruce Timm, Mr. Freeze was transformed from a silly silver-age villain in the comics to a complex and genuinely tragic character in Batman: The Animated Series. Batman and Robin dilutes his story and ramps up the goofiness TAS went so far out of its way to underplay, but it keeps the same moving background, and it results in a truly lovely theme from Goldenthal. It's a haunting, heartbreaking cue, beautifully choral, devastatingly tragic without being overbearing.

In the more action-oriented tracks, Freeze and his henchmen get plenty of percussion, but Goldenthal blends it superbly into his more heroic themes. "Final Confrontation" is a spectacular piece. It re-uses his "Battadammerung" from Forever, but again, it does it even more dramatically.


In the end, unlike the film, Goldenthal's Batman and Robin is a real success. It still has the eclectic originality Goldenthal is known for, but in one of his most coherent and compelling presentations. The irritating bombast is kept to a minimum, the unlistenable craziness thrown away. Goldenthal's fans may find it slightly too mainstream, but it's a strong, solid score, and well worth buying.

Unfortunately, it's not a commercially available soundtrack. Warner Bros. never released any of Goldenthal's score on CD, only releasing a suite from Forever onto the "Official Soundtrack" of various hard rock songs. Not surprisingly, though, 2-CD bootlegs are out there. This probably does the score a disservice, since the too-complete 2-CD sets include a lot of more repetitious background music. At about 50 minutes, this would be an awesome soundtrack. Savvy music fans can create their own strong version from the overlong bootlegs. It remains disappointing, however, that Warner Bros. never gave an official release to this excellent score, which deserves it far more than certain later scores...

Speaking of which -- next up, Hanz Zimmer and James Newton Howard! Underachieving Zimmer and Howard, unfortunately, but still, Zimmer and Howard!


RATINGS:


BATMAN FOREVER

In film: * * *
On CD: * *


BATMAN AND ROBIN
In film: * * * 1/2
On CD: * * *