(With many thanks to Melinda, fellow Rabinite, for the heads-up. :))
On November 20th the Anderson Ponty Band played a show at the Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills and in attendance were some of Jon's old friends: Trevor, his percussive sidekick Lou Molino, and Billy Sherwood. You can see a few candid shots on the APB Fans Facebook page, like this one of Trevor:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10207347736158977&set=pcb.786315038181855&type=3&theater
The tour for the ensemble's debut album Better Late Than Never wrapped in Scottsdale on the 22nd, but here's hoping there's more music and touring to come!
Monday, November 30, 2015
Monday, November 23, 2015
Knowing The Score: 12 Monkeys season one (SyFy)
Originally I was planning to at least write about the first episode of the show but then...well, I was lacking in spoons to undertake the task of recapping. So now that the score album is out I thought I would chronicle my impressions regarding those themes and cues which were chosen for the album, and their resonance within the series.
Here is the way in which Trevor described the score in the attendant press release:
“The 12 Monkeys score, which I’m doing with my long time assistant and collaborator Paul Linford, is a hybrid score of ethnic sounds, orchestra, and electronic, with a strong theme base,” said Rabin.
This particular formula is something which can be said to describe two other genre films which Trevor and Paul worked on: The 6th Day and The One. In the scoring commentary track Trevor provided for The 6th Day home video release he makes special note of some of the percussive elements. In another quote from the press release, stating that he and Paul played most of the instrumentation, he noted that his long-time friend and collaborator Lou Molino III also contributed percussion (as he has on other scoring work previously) and that the choice of such instruments "gives the music a far more organic feel."
Utilizing what can be considered more "primitive" technology is an easy way to evoke retro-futurism; for example, the use of vintage synth samples in Race to Witch Mountain is evocative of the alien plot point. 12 Monkeys uses this construct in regards to the future portrayed in the show, as much of humanity has fallen victim to a global pandemic and therefore centers of civilization and technology have devolved to chaos and ruin and now there are clusters and cults remaining rather than communities and cities. Although the show means to replicate the span and scale of the original film, they can't, and it shows. This doesn't mean it doesn't try, however, and one of the ways in which they did was by hiring Trevor and Paul because they have a specific cinematic sensibility which can make a show seem larger than it really is. This same strategy was applied to Zero Hour, although I think a better use of scoring is part of what makes 12 Monkeys successful where the former was not (but, naturally, having a show with decent performances and production values and scripts, and a distinct lack of wackiness is also helpful).
To begin with the main theme, "I Am The Clock," it embodies the sense of urgency inherent in the main storyline, a sense of time and movement, a sense of dramatic tension but is also just a damn catchy tune. But then it segues into a more stately reflective movement before returning to that same percussive sequence, to acknowledge that the movement of the narrative is also dynamic. But it's not overly dramatic for the sake of being dramatic. This track also functions as the score suite, so it contains elements of other themes from the entire season. Trevor, ever a friend to melody, knows that people don't go home (or change the channel) humming the lights; meaning: it's important to present a melody which - as the main thematic motif - needs to resonate within the audience, as it will be recalled at different times throughout the season (and the series, one imagines) entire. And every time it does come back it reinforces those primary narrative values.
"Do You Believe in Fate?" combines elements of orchestra, percussion and ambiance to evoke the slippery notion of relationships, to my mind. One is never quite assured of one's allies and enemies in this show. In the episode "Splinter" its' use underscores Cole's dissociative state of mind as a man caught between two different timelines. There is menace and longing in equal measure, especially in the second half of the theme. The same formula is evident in "Cole On The Move," but more suited to considerations of action. "The Future Is History" contains more of an electronica chill, and I believe this is Paul's territory, as he contributes many of the more ambient/electronica motifs in Trevor's scores, although most of them are incidental music. But then a bit of the main theme weaves its' way through along with the persistent "ticking" again meant to remind us that time is the true enemy in this story even as Cole is not a man bound by time, according to Dr. Jones. The layering of various textural elements is important in this respect as well, to give a sense of a larger construct.
I like the way incidental music is utilized in the episodes as well, it's entirely contextual rather than simply layered over a scene, which in turn preserves the overall mood and resonance of the score when it is used.
There are a number of percussive motifs throughout the score as a whole: some serve to build to a greater climax for action scenes, others provide an underlying sense of urgency, and still others evoke menace or tension or sadness. A chiming effect - a type of which Trevor used for emotional underscoring in "Rescue" on Jacaranda - provokes any number of reactions in a listener, and therefore is inherently compelling. "The Monkeys On The Wall" is a great example of the use of the time-bound thematic element, with a transition from percussion to a piano and orchestral movement. The percussion motif returns at the end to provide a dramatic lift.
It can be posited that nearly every character is a tragic character in one way or another, but the way in which this is expressed in "Katarina (Jones' Theme)," for example, is especially poignant, as viewers learn throughout the season just how much Dr. Jones has sacrificed to make Project Splinter a reality, and possibly humanity's last hope.
The interesting element to consider is that this is not merely a collection of every major theme and cue from two hours of film, but rather thirteen hours of film, the context of television series scoring enables an album of longer themes, as there is likely to be at least one in every episode. The album contains 23 tracks, so it's a reasonable assumption that the central theme for every episode was included, if applicable. Very few of the shorter cues were chosen, and of those included, like "Temporal Frustrations" and "Time Is Cruel," are selected because they are interesting and memorable even for their short spans, underscoring what is occurring onscreen. "Railly Meets Jones," for example, is one of the most interesting in that it takes both character's themes and blends them into one of the more beautiful moments of the score.
What I find interesting about the theme which is used to represent the most menacing character - "The Pallid Man" - it is not wholly frightening, there is a deeper sense of drama as well as echoes of other themes. I appreciate that even the character cues are somewhat ambiguous in their sonic portrayals. The use of sonic space in this theme is interesting, because the character is meant to be a cipher, and the sense of blankness and absence-in-presence is portrayed effectively.
At some point I would like to write about what I consider the best episode of season one -"The Keys" - and "It Was The Keys" resonates with all its inherent emotional power not only as a part of that narrative continuum, but also the way in which that specific episode portrays considerations of time, memory and distance. It is the emotional heart of this score as a whole, in my opinion. Another episode-related theme, "Atari," portrays the specific tensions of the world of the narrative, and how they impact Cole and Ramse, with an almost Arabic classical music influence.
"Goodbye Cole" is particularly special because it features a bit of guitar but also it has a very evocative melody, a portrayal of what Cole's traveling through time does not only to himself, but the people he leaves behind. "Spearhead" is an interesting take on the main theme, also recalling elements of "The Future Is History." "Jennifer Takeover" features a great voicing of its melody, I appreciate the touches of woodwinds among the electronica and percussive elements. There's also a great bass motif which comes out in the second half of the cue. The use of the violin and piano in "The Night Room" is classic Trevor to my mind, it's almost out of Armageddon.
Interesting textures of all kinds also dominate "The Cycle Is Complete," tying together many of the motifs offered throughout the series, which is what a good closing theme should do of course. That Rabin-esque sense of grandeur is also apparent in the way the orchestral and voice elements lift the theme to a more triumphant air. The track as a whole is simply gorgeous, and the primary reason why I love Trevor's scoring so much.
As I noted, the score for this series is used to memorable effect, it provides emotional resonance and support for the plot and characters, and it is certainly a credit to Trevor and Paul that they managed to maintain consistent and compelling quality over an entire season, and I'm looking forward to the further development of all of these elements in season two.
Monday, November 16, 2015
Collector's Corner: just a big softy.
A continuing series wherein I share my obsession with and collection of Trevor memorabilia.
A bit over four years ago I acquired one of my most-desired collectibles; it took me a very long time because I didn't want to pay what I call crazy money for it, so it was just a matter of waiting till I found a vendor selling their copy for what I considered a reasonable price, even though, as a promo, legally you can't sell it at all.
This is film music composed by Trevor Rabin, a promo CD released by Trevor's management company back in 2003, when they still went by Blue Focus Management.
A bit over four years ago I acquired one of my most-desired collectibles; it took me a very long time because I didn't want to pay what I call crazy money for it, so it was just a matter of waiting till I found a vendor selling their copy for what I considered a reasonable price, even though, as a promo, legally you can't sell it at all.
This is film music composed by Trevor Rabin, a promo CD released by Trevor's management company back in 2003, when they still went by Blue Focus Management.
I believe the year of release was 2003 because, although the artwork references the logo for The Banger Sisters, the photo of Trevor on the back cover was part of a photo session he did to promote his 2003 Voiceprint CD releases 90124 and Live In L.A. I like to think that the inclusion of purple flowers is a nod to his beloved jacaranda trees.
In the preceding years Trevor was beginning to perhaps garner a reputation beyond the "action movie go-to guy" which was largely the narrative of his scoring career at that point. This promo has a specific purpose in regards to its distribution to production companies: present Trevor in a more sensitive light as a film scorer. And two things had to happen before they could do that:
-1- One of Trevor's themes for Deep Blue Sea, "Aftermath," was used as the music in the trailer for Ron Howard's Oscar-bait biopic A Beautiful Mind.
-2- Trevor scored The Banger Sisters, the first - and only - "chick flick" he's worked on.
In light of these opportunities, this promo was created and it is unique for several reasons, but specifically for how it is described:
Though best known for his outstanding action scores, Trevor Rabin especially shines composing music of an emotional, lyrical nature. As a songwriter and member of Yes, he composed the worldwide hit "Owner of a Lonely Heart." Rabin's unique gift for melody continues throughout his film work. Featuring music from such diverse scores as Remember The Titans, The Banger Sisters, and the trailer for A Beautiful Mind, this CD compilation highlights some of Rabin's personal favorites.
It's marketing, certainly, but it's also an acknowledgement of Trevor's ability to compose anything, given the breadth of genres he had tackled after seven years in the business. By that time he had scored action-adventure, drama, comedy, horror, science-fiction, family, sports and espionage-type films. And within those seven years he had also written three of his most beautiful themes, two of which are included in this compilation. That fact alone speaks volumes in regards to Trevor's talent and abilities.
So onto the tracklist, with my annotations. Based on the period of release, the tracks included could only be from the scores of films released prior to 2003. It took me a while to research this once I figured out that some of the tracks were listed with titles which had perhaps been used prior to final sequencing for their respective films.
"Remember The Titans" from the film of the same name.
"Grace" from Armageddon, which is an edit of "Harry and Grace Make Peace" with additional elements from the film's suite.
"Banger Sisters" from The Banger Sisters, an edit of the main themes of the film.
"Prague" from Bad Company, a promotional mix which combines the theme "Prague Main Titles" with elements of "Welcome To Prague."
"A Beautiful Mind Trailer" which is actually "Aftermath" from Deep Blue Sea.
"Remembrance" which is actually "Trisha" from Con Air.
"Friendship" from The Banger Sisters, an edit of two separate cues.
"Sunrise" which is actually "First Kiss" from American Outlaws.
"Gettysburg" from Remember The Titans.
Back to the beautiful themes, the ones I refer to are "Prague" and "Aftermath" and the one which was not included was "Frostbite" from Jack Frost. I see it as a missed opportunity, but it's possible they weren't able to obtain clearance to use it. It would have been right at home, in my opinion, in terms of the overall emotive mood of this collection.
What primarily makes this release a rarity - besides its' Not For Sale status - is that it contains music from The Banger Sisters, which did not receive a score release, though Trevor's version of "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" from the film is included in the movie's soundtrack album. The promo mix of "Prague" has also never been officially released - though if you were to obtain a copy of the score promo (because that score was also never released) for Bad Company you would have both tracks - the special mix was created either for this compilation or perhaps the score suite promo, which is often a separate release from a full score promo. You can also hear "Prague" in "BMBBO" from the Bad Company soundtrack, an edit which combines the themes "Prague" and "Chase." All the others are available on their respective score albums, though the selections from Remember The Titans are probably contained within "Titans Spirit" which appears on the film's soundtrack release.
Now we can consider...did this release do the trick? Yes and no, I think. Trevor still harbors a desire to do a "light orchestral" type of score, and has cited Michael Gore's score for Terms of Endearment as the type of work he would like to have a go at himself. But so far he has not been granted that particular opportunity. If anything, I believe Trevor has been given more work based on past credits (I believe he was handed Torque, for example, because of his score for Gone In 60 Seconds), but also films with decidedly more emotional gravitas, such as Flyboys, The Great Raid, and The Guardian - featuring yet another beautiful theme in "Rescuing Fischer." I believe his success was in gaining the trust of directors and producers in regards to creating wonderfully evocative themes and cues for his scoring work. Trevor's gift for melody makes these moments as poignant - sometimes in spite of the film as a whole - as they need to be, always in perfect accompaniment.
Thursday, November 12, 2015
Media Watch: human highlight reel go-to guy
An ongoing series wherein I comment on Trevor's recent publicity.
Today's citation comes courtesy of a listicle on Sporting News, a ranking of the top ten inspiring sports movie scores. At number eight is Trevor's score for Remember The Titans. Titans is not a movie I'd actually riff on in this blog, as it is inspiring and uplifting, and its' score is considered one of Trevor's best; though its' true cultural touchstone status was achieved courtesy of our POTUS who used the main theme suite "Titans Spirit" in his 2008 campaign.
As we know, Trevor has composed a number of scores for sports-themed movies, the most recent of which was Grudge Match; besides Titans I'd say the best of them is for Glory Road, the 2006 college basketball drama.
http://www.sportingnews.com/sport-news/4660914-best-sports-movie-soundtracks-scores-music-rudy-rocky-the-natural-miracle-composers-jerry-goldsmith
Today's citation comes courtesy of a listicle on Sporting News, a ranking of the top ten inspiring sports movie scores. At number eight is Trevor's score for Remember The Titans. Titans is not a movie I'd actually riff on in this blog, as it is inspiring and uplifting, and its' score is considered one of Trevor's best; though its' true cultural touchstone status was achieved courtesy of our POTUS who used the main theme suite "Titans Spirit" in his 2008 campaign.
As we know, Trevor has composed a number of scores for sports-themed movies, the most recent of which was Grudge Match; besides Titans I'd say the best of them is for Glory Road, the 2006 college basketball drama.
http://www.sportingnews.com/sport-news/4660914-best-sports-movie-soundtracks-scores-music-rudy-rocky-the-natural-miracle-composers-jerry-goldsmith
Sunday, November 1, 2015
Knowing The Score: Deep Blue Sea
Author's note: I've been working on this entry for a looooong time, and originally meant to post it during Shark Week but then decided since DBS is ostensibly a horror film, it would make for an appropriate Halloween observance. So on with the skewing...err...reviewing.
Content warning: this essay contains excessive amounts of shark snark and SPOILERS! for Deep Blue Sea. Also, I didn't include images this time because this is a rather long piece; I hope that won't diminish your reading experience, but if it does I offer my apologies.
Although I'm a bit late in my observation of Shark Week, recently horror media site Bloody Disgusting published an editorial on five extremely underrated horror film scores and one of the selections was Trevor's score for Deep Blue Sea, released in 1999.
http://bloody-disgusting.com/editorials/3342934/underrated-horror-movie-score/2/
I would be apt to agree from the perspective of noting that it resides in the trend of Trevor composing excellent scores for movies which really don't deserve them. While I feel this might be considered a controversial opinion, I will say Trevor appeared to agree with it when I stated it to him during our interview exchange back in 2012.
Those of you who overall don't particularly care for the oeuvre of Trevor's film scoring and don't bother to see the movies or collect them on DVD/Blu-ray, I will say that you should own a copy of DBS because it contains, within the Behind The Scenes documentary ("When Sharks Attack!" - the section on the score begins at 12:20 in the documentary), comments from Trevor and footage of him working with Renny and the orchestra during a spotting session. Renny and Trevor have a great friendship - which in part explains why they've collaborated on four films - and as this was their first project together, it's interesting to note their camaraderie even then.
What is significant to me regarding Trevor's score for DBS is it contains one of his most beautiful and haunting themes, "Aftermath," which was later used in the trailer for the film A Beautiful Mind. With piano and strings, it is wholly illustrative of Trevor's abilities at marrying emotion and elegance, it is sparse but then builds to a grandeur which is wonderfully melodic, and then transitions to an acoustic guitar part which is also simple but beautiful before the orchestra and choir return for the finish. The theme is reprised in the cue "Doctor's Orders" and the theme "Susan Softens."
As to the film, I have gone on record as stating that I don't particularly care for the films of Renny Harlin, so my impressions of this film are going to be colored by my overall stylistic distaste but this was back when Hollywood was giving Renny money and opportunity to be an action movie Golden Boy so as ridiculous as it might be, DBS has some charm to it, and part of that charm is centered in Trevor's score. This was the first horror film he had ever scored, and as he always looked to any genre he encountered as a challenge, he did his best to take it on to the fullest extent as a composer.
Sharks, as the implacable, unassailable and enigmatic predators of the sea, make good villains. But in any ensemble-cast horror movie, we know ultimately that humans are their own worst enemies due to their ignorance and their arrogance. In some ways this is a haunted house movie, given the isolation of the scientific facility and the stress of the situation even without the threat of bio-engineered sharks. But the tagline of this movie is Bigger. Smarter. Faster. Meaner. and...hell, why not add Scarier. (?) But that would be too obvious, right? (Spoiler: they're really not.)
Harlan notes in his director's commentary that the opening scene of the film is an homage to Jaws, and I think the audience gets that but....it doesn't even come close to invoking the dread which its ancestor presented to our atavistic imaginations. There is another visual nod to the film somewhat later on, which, if you've watched Jaws enough times, you will spot immediately. We see two couples getting their drunken groping on offshore and then a little red wine is spilled into the water which seems to suddenly draw a shark which bursts through the bottom of the sailboat. Chaos ensues but the party is rescued by a well-placed harpoon capture thanks to one of those iron-jawed ruggedly handsome kind of guys who are just patrolling the oceans waiting for disaster, am I right? Yeah, so...like I said, ridiculous.
Cut to: the red sunset haze of Los Angeles wherein Dr. Frankenshark is so incensed at the media fallout of her escaped shark snafu she has come to yell at her exorbitantly wealthy boss, Samuel L. Jackson (who could give any shark a run for its money in the charisma department, of course). The name of his corporation is Chimera, which is an anvilicious sort of reference, oy vey. Suddenly they're on a sea plane, headed to said facility, Aquatica Research. The doctor is not only a brilliant genetic researcher, she's licensed to fly a seaplane! I appreciate giving women agency in narrative, of course, but this comes off a little Mary Sue-ish for my tastes.
Oooh look, it's the iron-jawed hunter! Thomas Jane is a damn fine-looking man, I gotta say, and he's perfect for the role of The Shark Whisperer. But Dr. Frankenshark is immune to his charms, even soaking wet. She's All Science, All The Time.
In a clearly Hitchcockian nod, Renny appears in his own movie - and he could have actually played a minor character, such is his lanky long-haired surfer dude persona.
In the director's commentary, Samuel L. Jackson notes that Stellan Skarsgard is "probably slumming" in this movie, and boy he ain't kidding! But such is the wackiness of this ensemble, really, in terms of casting, with a mix of serious and comedic characters and acting therein. Intense people are intense, goofy people are goofy (even when the shark hits the fan, as it were). Michael Rapaport is great comic relief, and his chemistry with LL Cool J provides moments in which the audience can relax. It's interesting to see how big Rapaport plays in comparison to Jane's terse circumscription, for example. It's textbook, and that's one of my complaints with the film in general. There's no subtlety at all.
A squall is on the way, and all non-essential personnel have vacated, leaving the rest in what could also be considered a locked-room kind of narrative...except that we know Whodunit? What we don't know is how the shark got out...but wait, oh yeah, because reasons: of super intelligence.
We see Dr. Frankenshark continuing with her Success At All Costs, But At What Price? research efforts, her true agenda a secret from her colleagues as well as her boss, and there is also an directorial agenda (stated by Harlin in his commentary) to make her the real villain. I appreciate that she is a villain by virtue of her intelligence and although she is just another mad scientist, at least she is the one, because you see very few women occupying this trope.
This is followed by some dick-waving between Jackson and Jane, with Jane giving a Soul Surfer kind of vibe to The Shark Whisperer. Then we're in the kitchen with LL Cool J and he and that parrot are the heart of this story, thank you Jesus. That parrot, y'all, best thing in this movie. Everyone keeps staring at the portholes in an ominous fashion, which is telegraphing so hard you don't even need the music to do it.
We learn the bio-engineered sharks are much like the Velociraptors in Jurassic Park: fast, smart, vicious and they hunt in a pack. These sequences are the most obvious kind of CGI, and even with the advances they had at their disposal it's not entirely successful. Harlin notes in his commentary it was a composite of live action, animatronic and CGI elements in order to look seamless, but the problem is we can see the seams and that detracts from whatever scariness we're meant to experience.
Night falls on Aquatica...and the crew throws a surprise birthday party for Dr. Frankenshark, which is the payoff of the cake we saw earlier. Thank goodness, because I would have spent the entire movie worrying about whether anyone was able to eat the cake. It's important.
Cut to: Dr. Frankenshark and The Shark Whisperer having a moment, which is intercut with various exposition, and ultimately they are on opposite sides of whatever argument they're having, which again, there is no subtlety in this kind of trope. You're either for the sharks or you're exploiting the hell out of them For Science. And that's just so eye-rollingly obvious. Even with the consideration that Dr. Frankenshark is dealing with the pain of personal loss by said exploitation, Saffron Burrows' performance is little more than a cardboard cut-out...Harlin speaks of walking a fine line with the portrayals but I want to know what movie he's watching, because I don't think it's Deep Blue Sea.
Day two of The Isolation and most everyone gathers in the Wet Lab for the shark-and-shark show - mind you, this is a little over 20 minutes into the movie. The storm is closing in so there's another element of (expected) tension...this could be a Gothic romance, almost, just replace whatever supernatural beings with sharks. Seriously though, that swim by The Shark Whisperer through the murky lengths of the underwater cage? Pure Gothic terror right there. The sharks attempt to corner him in one section, again displaying a pack behavior which isn't supposed to be existent instinct. And then...they take out the surveillance cameras.
OH SH(ARK)!
The Shark Whisperer has one of those Don't Go In The Basement moments wherein he decides go outside the cage to check the cameras. Mind you, the other sharks ate the one he made friends with earlier, so this is the level of genius that the Aquatica braintrust exhibits on the whole. Most of the facility is underwater as well so...we already know how this is gonna go, right? Right. But then...FAKE OUT! The Shark Whisperer has fooled the super-smart shark stalking him and manages to tranquilize and bring it into the lab. Harlin notes that he went with a sort of Retro-Futurism look for the lab so it would be relatable to the audience. He states it is an "unusual" design, but...does no one know that nothing has been original since Alien, twenty years its' senior? And also again, nowhere near the dread factor of that movie.
There's an effective jump-scare in the examination sequence, but that's nothing compared to the OH SH(ARK)! moment when the sedated shark was only pretending to be sedated...and...Stellan Skarsgard's arm is the first casualty. Now, this causes The Shark Whisperer to attempt to go medieval on its amphibious ass, err, fin, but Dr. Frankenshark is having none of that - that's her prized lab shark which is going to cure Alzheimers with its super-smart brain fluid, so she sets it free. Something tells me she's gonna live to regret that decision...or not live, as the case may be.
So now they're attempting to Medivac the injured Stellan outta there stat, but when they get to the surface, HOLY STORM FRONT! Like I said, this might as well be a Gothic novel. And soon enough, the rest of him follows his arm as the first course. You know what they say: once it gets a taste for human flesh...and then both the Medivac helicopter and Brenda the Radio Gal are toast. The first time I saw this movie, I turned to my friend and said: "Whatcha wanna bet the fat chick gets it first?" I was pretty close, wouldn't you say? The fat chick is never the Final Girl, thank you sexist Hollywood filmmakers.
Everything just blows the fuck up, people fall over, chaos and panic ensue, we are now a little over half an hour into the movie. Not that we need any story when we can have explosions and mayhem by Harlin's logic, but seriously, we don't even know these characters, why should we feel sorry for any of them? Despite Renny's insistence that the pacing be fast because what matters is the shark, I disagree. The horror would be far more horrific if we were actually invested in the story and characters at all. Well okay, I care about the parrot, but that is it.
Meanwhile, literally everything blows the fuck up, and LL Cool J finds the cooking sherry miraculously spared, so he swigs it down. Drink up my man, because the shark has hit the fan for sure.
In the Wet Lab, everything is terrible, and they are all transfixed by something approaching the ginormous observation window...you know how on SNL they had that Candygram skit and it was always a landshark?
Yeah.
SPECIAL DELIVERY, HUMANS! THE SHARKS ARE 5000% DONE WITH YOUR SHIT.
The truly horrible thing is that Stellan is alive when the shark throws him into the observation window like a rabid UPS driver delivering a box of priceless bone china. Smash! And they're all just standing there, like, WHA?!, and Samuel L. Jackson calmly says, "Okay people, let's move," like it's a planned fire drill, but they don't move fast enough, of course, and the ocean seeks its natural level, as the ocean tends to do.
So everything is terrible and everyone is truly in a world of sunken shit. LL Cool J's character is having a conversation with his God, and the parrot is like, "Dude, do you know how to swim?" Meanwhile, Rapaport has informed everyone that there is no way out of this retrofitted submarine refueling depot death trap. Thomas Jane action-heros a map of the facility, and then LL Cool J makes it to one of the stairwells. But his parrot is the smartest animal in this movie because it flies the fuck out of there, y'all. Because we're all yelling DON'T GO UP THOSE STAIRS and he does it anyway. Just like the Itsy-Bitsy Spider he gets washed the hell out, tout de suite.
The Ocean is all LET ME IN and everyone else is all LET ME OUT and they make it to a maintenance shaft as the Implacable Tide of Water besieges them. Outside everything is terrible and terribly on fire - in the middle of a storm (yeah whatever) - and as Renny proclaims in his commentary: "You can swim, but you can't hide" (from the super-smart sharks who are comin' to getcha). Meanwhile, LL Cool J is looking for The Smartest Animal and The Best Character In This Movie, which doesn't appear to have an actual name. But Renny says it was two parrots from Mexico City, so I'm going to call the character Esteban. He's swim-walking through a hallway, and Esteban is mocking him, like, "Dude, follow the sound of my voice and you might possibly survive this clusterfuck."
There are parallel narrative tracks here, if you can call them that. The remainder of the Aquatica crew being all tense and fraught with peril and not wanting to drown or be eaten by sharks, and, LL Cool J and Esteban also trying not to drown or be eaten by sharks. I don't think this really works, exactly. Anyway, so Jackson and Jane are dick-waving again, and slowly coming to the realization that maybe the sharks are 5000% done with their shit, but The Shark Whisperer cannot abandon his empathy just yet, but A Significant Glance from Dr. Frankenshark tells us that the sharks are at least smart enough to kill them all eventually. Because humans will panic and turn on each other and be stupid, generally. And then Samuel L. Jackson turns on his pet researcher and demands to know what Dr. Frankenshark did because he's had it with these motherfucking sharks in this motherfucking ocean and...oh wait. Sorry, never mind. She tells him that she gave the sharks bigger brains to get more of the protein she needed so of course they're smarter. And when a super-smart shark is threatened, well...it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what happens after that. When you piss off a predator, super-smart or not, somebody's gonna get et.
There's tears and disbelief and frustration, and Samuel L. Jackson is thinking, "I did not fund you massive amounts of money to make me into Shark Chow!" And she's, like, "But we can save humanity with my valuable but ethically questionable research!" But everyone else is, like, "Nope." Dr. Frankenshark and The Shark Whisperer have another face off and he's all, "You know we're all gonna die, right?" Samuel L. Jackson tries to Think Tank a solution but no one cares. And they all walk away from Dr. Frankenshark, like, "So done with your shit too, missy."
Meanwhile, LL Cool J's search for Esteban continues. He's well on his way to a bad case of hypothermia (and that's not method acting, because the water in those tanks they shot in was cold), when he realizes he's on the menu (Get it, get it?! The cook is on the menu!). We cut back to the rest of the crew and I don't care about these people, seriously. They reach the Mini-Sub bay and, like their fate, it's pretty much fucked. We return to LL Cool J being Stalked By A Shark, already in progress. But my man shows some initiative and grabs an axe. He climbs up onto an equipment rack just as his nemesis catches up to him. Esteban startles him from the top shelf, and Harlin notes in his commentary that it is the classic "cat in the alleyway" horror movie jump-scare. Esteban lands on a floating pot and LL is all, this damn bird is gonna be the death of me, and tries to coax Esteban back onto his shoulder, or whatever. And...The Inevitable Thing happens.
RIP, Esteban. I hope you gave that shark severe indigestion.
But Renny Harlin pissed me off by saying in the commentary, "Thank goodness we got rid of that parrot, finally." Look man, that parrot was the best thing in your entire lame-ass movie, alright?! Everyone else can just die already, as far as I'm concerned. But no, that's not gonna happen...yet. So we've got the sub bay and the kitchen, and everyone's trying not to drown or get eaten by a shark. Samuel L.Jackson proclaims that they're all "going to have to swim out of here" and at this point I'm saying "Vaya con dios, y'all."
LL Cool J escapes a Hansel-and-Gretel fate by hacking his way out of an oven and trying to outswim a shark. Oh honey, seriously? But the shark turned on the oven and the gas is now filling the kitchen and LL busts out his waterproof Zippo...KABOOM! Now that's some MacGyver shit right there.
LL Cool J: 1 Sharks: 2
At this point in his commentary, Harlin admits that he is also cribbing from Alien in his choice of casting one big star and then some lesser-known actors. See? I told you guys, nothing is new at this point in the horror game. Or at least in this movie.
So now Samuel L. Jackson has his actual "I've had it with these motherfucking sharks in this motherfucking ocean" moment. LOL no, not really, but he's giving his "I have seen some shit, y'all, and I have done some things" speech, and then...
LL Cool J: 1 Sharks: 3
Sharks...still 5000% done with your shit. They ravenously chow down on Sam since Esteban wasn't even a snack, apparently. Everyone is reeling in horror, and...okay, I didn't really want Samuel L. Jackson to die. And I don't want LL Cool J to die. But everyone else? *rings dinner bell*
Speaking of everyone else, they decide to climb the elevator shaft and thereby flood the entire facility, which is already sinking and crumbling around them. Plus, the top of the shaft is on fire and burning debris is falling down into it. And I still don't care about them. One of the super-smart sharks goes right to the access hatch and rams into it.
Knock knock! Who's there? THE SHARKS, motherfuckers!
It gets in, of course, and Thomas Jane action-heros another solution, so everyone else is climbing towards the burning surface while he attempts to access one of the lower levels. I like that the score piece playing in this section is one of Trevor's "I'm going to save everyone" kind of themes. The man can write some Human Highlight Reel music, this we know. So the water is rising in the shaft, which means the shark is rising too. In other words, everything is terrible.
Then Renny admits that he ripped off his own movie in the next sequence, where the ladder falls down and The Shark Whisperer attempts to rescue The Other Researcher Whose Name I Can't Be Bothered To Remember, but she's blonde and cute. He says it's "a reenactment of the opening of Cliffhanger" and as such, the same fate awaits the girl.
LL Cool J: 1 Sharks: 4
There's only one girl left, I don't think there's gonna be a Final Girl in this movie, frankly. Everyone is upset - again - and I'm looking at Dr. Frankenshark, thinking: "Oh stop with your crocodile tears, lady. Nature finds a way, you know what I'm saying?" Things are increasingly more terrible, and it's at this point our Final Guy (well, I think he is) appears on a ledge and salutes then all, like, "Greetings my fellow menu items!" And they better respect, because my man killed a shark, which is more than they've done in the whole damn movie. They raid one of the rooms for anything they can use, and there's some levity and some emotion but as Harlin again notes, they don't go too deep because that's not what this movie is about. It's about super-smart sharks and the cardboard cut-out characters they eat. (Well no wonder they're always hungry!)
(Also, I kinda wanna go and watch all of Renny's movies to see if I can spot the Finnish flag he appears to place somewhere in each of them. Then again...maybe not.)
Renny has Rapaport and LL Cool J hug to attempt to inject some "human warmth" and...dude, seriously, that is not character development. We don't care because you didn't give us time to care. The characters have to split up again and at this point in his commentary Renny is discussing the sound design and scoring and he notes that Trevor spent a lot of time developing the theme for the sharks and purposely making it dissimilar to John Williams' theme for Bruce (the shark from Jaws). He says "I like the music of the film" and that is the only time he mentions Trevor in the commentary. For me, the cuts between the peril and the comic relief don't work in my estimation because it feels like the tension is being drawn out for too long.
There's a brief moment of triumph for Rapaport and then...
LL Cool J: 1 Sharks: 5
Renny says that the main impetus of the shark attacks is they want to destroy the facility and obtain their freedom. But since the whole place is falling down around them, and one of them had managed to escape already, they all would have been able to. So I call bullshit on that. They are 5000% done with your shit and they want revenge, it's just that simple.
Dr. Frankenshark is tip-toeing through the flooded corridor to get to her quarters, because she's got to retrieve her Results At All Costs, But At What Price? research, and the guys are back in the elevator shaft and realize she's missing and LL rather meta-esquely declares: "Aww, I'm done! Brothers never make it out of situations like this, not ever!"
(Hang on my man, I think you're gonna be the Final Guy.)
She gets jump-scared by her fake shark (which we see in an earlier scene) and then one of the real sharks appears and she's all, "Look, I made you super-smart! You should be thanking me!" And the shark is, like, "Nope, 'cause nobody like needles in their brain." After a prolonged game of doctor-and-shark...
Humans: 2 Sharks: 5
There's a lot of conventions at work is this movie: action thriller, haunted house story, locked-room mystery, slasher film, Gothic novel, science experiment gone awry...and it's kinda like a stew when you think it will be better if you keep adding stuff to it, but in the end it doesn't taste like anything at all. But maybe the worst is Harlin's admission that Saffron Burrows was required to strip down to bra-and-panties to kill the shark (supposedly with the excuse she was grounding herself by standing on her wetsuit when she electrocuted it) in a gesture which is displayed in almost every horror movie: women are punished for their sexuality. In this case, however, she's not being punished for enacting sexuality so much as just acknowledging the archetype of the maiden being menaced by the monster. As I said, I do appreciate that she has agency, but that was just blatantly exploitative.
And in the end her research is destroyed, so in essence nobody won. Unless you want to call surviving this disaster winning, but somehow I think she's ambivalent about that. She continues to look conflicted for the rest of the movie, unless that's her resting bitchface, so to speak.
The final escape plan is to flood one of the outer hatches then blow the door and ascend to the surface with life jackets and air tanks serving as decoys for the sharks, but I'm thinking if they've been underwater lower than, say, 30 feet they're going to risk the bends if they rise too fast. However, I know logic has no place in this movie. LL gets gnawed on a bit - in another homage to Jaws - but I told you, my man is a Final Guy.
On the surface, day three of The Isolation finds our protagonists upon the flaming ruins of Aquatica Research. The storm has passed, and they exposition about the sharks' master plan. Dr. Frankenshark insists, "It's her or us," and The Shark Whisperer is all, "WELL DUH." So they are loaded for bear, err, shark, because as we all know from Jaws, nothing works quite so well as BLOWING SH(ARK) UP. But there's a logistical snafu and so Dr. Frankenshark decides to sacrifice herself for the good of BLOWING SH(ARK) UP by chumming the water with her own blood and the remaining shark scents it, thinking, "Hey wait a minute, is that the blood of the woman who has performed bizarre and unnecessary experiments upon me and my kind?" And when she does get the attention of said shark, the good doctor wigs out and starts swimming for safety but then...
Humans: 2 Sharks: 6
But like I said, she seemed highly ambivalent about surviving, so perhaps it was for the best. The Shark Whisperer dove in after with some Quixotic notion in mind, and manages, with his shark whispering skills, not to get et. Meanwhile. LL Cool J has figured out the BLOWING SH(ARK) UP gambit and is ready to bite back, as it were. Plus, he has to do itfor great justice to avenge the bromance which ended tragically. In a last-ditch attempt to create some suspense he manages to harpoon Jane (who is caught on the fence and does not get blown up, huzzah, because he's just too iron-jawed to die). Everyone who had the weekend off, apparently, is now on the way back...to find out they'll all unemployed.
THEE END.
So a bit about the score...the official score album contains the main themes, there's only one actual cue. It's short but I think it's fully worth picking up if you do enjoy Trevor's scoring work. There's a grey-market DVD-rip containing all the cues and themes which you can find if you're of a mind to and know where to look. But one of the interesting things to me is the "Deepest Bluest" song by LL Cool J - even if you're not a fan of Hip Hop I would recommend giving it a listen because it's co-produced by Trevor and it contains elements of the score as well as a guitar part played by Trevor. I seem to recall there's an instrumental version too. There's also a seven-minute suite which isn't on the score album or in the end credits, but you can probably find it on YouTube.
What I like about the score overall is the use of piano and woodwinds to create that icy feeling of dread, but there's also a sense of space which fits with the milieu of the movie, taking place largely underwater. There's the orchestral grandeur and big dramatic passages which Trevor is most well-known for, as well as evocative guitar accents and swells of choir - it's all the elements which imbue his best work, and, quite frankly, gilds the lily a bit. But DBS needs that, it needs all the help it can get. It's a much more beautiful score than the movie deserves. And it lends a humanity to the movie which Harlin was attempting to create but he never quite gets there. Trevor's score reminds you to feel the things which the characters should be feeling, and underscores all the appropriate emotional cues, which is what a score needs to do. "Journey" has some interesting vocal/synth and percussive textures among the orchestral elements, and the "Main" track features the eerie theme he created for the sharks. "Hunting In Packs" contains a sort of whale song element to create an aquatic ambiance. "Shark Side" also has very interesting percussion textures which then flow into lovely orchestral passages.
Now this is not the first time I've mocked a movie of Renny's - those of you who have read some of my posts at Yesfans know I generally have this kind of attitude about his work. But I did want to suffer through this movie again if only because Trevor's score deserves recognition and appreciation...so buy the DVD, but only watch the documentary. Buy the CD, and enjoy Trevor's beautiful compositions. Don't go in the water...unless you know sharks have nothing against you. Because unless you remind them of a sea lion, they probably don't!
Content warning: this essay contains excessive amounts of shark snark and SPOILERS! for Deep Blue Sea. Also, I didn't include images this time because this is a rather long piece; I hope that won't diminish your reading experience, but if it does I offer my apologies.
Although I'm a bit late in my observation of Shark Week, recently horror media site Bloody Disgusting published an editorial on five extremely underrated horror film scores and one of the selections was Trevor's score for Deep Blue Sea, released in 1999.
http://bloody-disgusting.com/editorials/3342934/underrated-horror-movie-score/2/
I would be apt to agree from the perspective of noting that it resides in the trend of Trevor composing excellent scores for movies which really don't deserve them. While I feel this might be considered a controversial opinion, I will say Trevor appeared to agree with it when I stated it to him during our interview exchange back in 2012.
Those of you who overall don't particularly care for the oeuvre of Trevor's film scoring and don't bother to see the movies or collect them on DVD/Blu-ray, I will say that you should own a copy of DBS because it contains, within the Behind The Scenes documentary ("When Sharks Attack!" - the section on the score begins at 12:20 in the documentary), comments from Trevor and footage of him working with Renny and the orchestra during a spotting session. Renny and Trevor have a great friendship - which in part explains why they've collaborated on four films - and as this was their first project together, it's interesting to note their camaraderie even then.
What is significant to me regarding Trevor's score for DBS is it contains one of his most beautiful and haunting themes, "Aftermath," which was later used in the trailer for the film A Beautiful Mind. With piano and strings, it is wholly illustrative of Trevor's abilities at marrying emotion and elegance, it is sparse but then builds to a grandeur which is wonderfully melodic, and then transitions to an acoustic guitar part which is also simple but beautiful before the orchestra and choir return for the finish. The theme is reprised in the cue "Doctor's Orders" and the theme "Susan Softens."
As to the film, I have gone on record as stating that I don't particularly care for the films of Renny Harlin, so my impressions of this film are going to be colored by my overall stylistic distaste but this was back when Hollywood was giving Renny money and opportunity to be an action movie Golden Boy so as ridiculous as it might be, DBS has some charm to it, and part of that charm is centered in Trevor's score. This was the first horror film he had ever scored, and as he always looked to any genre he encountered as a challenge, he did his best to take it on to the fullest extent as a composer.
Sharks, as the implacable, unassailable and enigmatic predators of the sea, make good villains. But in any ensemble-cast horror movie, we know ultimately that humans are their own worst enemies due to their ignorance and their arrogance. In some ways this is a haunted house movie, given the isolation of the scientific facility and the stress of the situation even without the threat of bio-engineered sharks. But the tagline of this movie is Bigger. Smarter. Faster. Meaner. and...hell, why not add Scarier. (?) But that would be too obvious, right? (Spoiler: they're really not.)
Harlan notes in his director's commentary that the opening scene of the film is an homage to Jaws, and I think the audience gets that but....it doesn't even come close to invoking the dread which its ancestor presented to our atavistic imaginations. There is another visual nod to the film somewhat later on, which, if you've watched Jaws enough times, you will spot immediately. We see two couples getting their drunken groping on offshore and then a little red wine is spilled into the water which seems to suddenly draw a shark which bursts through the bottom of the sailboat. Chaos ensues but the party is rescued by a well-placed harpoon capture thanks to one of those iron-jawed ruggedly handsome kind of guys who are just patrolling the oceans waiting for disaster, am I right? Yeah, so...like I said, ridiculous.
Cut to: the red sunset haze of Los Angeles wherein Dr. Frankenshark is so incensed at the media fallout of her escaped shark snafu she has come to yell at her exorbitantly wealthy boss, Samuel L. Jackson (who could give any shark a run for its money in the charisma department, of course). The name of his corporation is Chimera, which is an anvilicious sort of reference, oy vey. Suddenly they're on a sea plane, headed to said facility, Aquatica Research. The doctor is not only a brilliant genetic researcher, she's licensed to fly a seaplane! I appreciate giving women agency in narrative, of course, but this comes off a little Mary Sue-ish for my tastes.
Oooh look, it's the iron-jawed hunter! Thomas Jane is a damn fine-looking man, I gotta say, and he's perfect for the role of The Shark Whisperer. But Dr. Frankenshark is immune to his charms, even soaking wet. She's All Science, All The Time.
In a clearly Hitchcockian nod, Renny appears in his own movie - and he could have actually played a minor character, such is his lanky long-haired surfer dude persona.
In the director's commentary, Samuel L. Jackson notes that Stellan Skarsgard is "probably slumming" in this movie, and boy he ain't kidding! But such is the wackiness of this ensemble, really, in terms of casting, with a mix of serious and comedic characters and acting therein. Intense people are intense, goofy people are goofy (even when the shark hits the fan, as it were). Michael Rapaport is great comic relief, and his chemistry with LL Cool J provides moments in which the audience can relax. It's interesting to see how big Rapaport plays in comparison to Jane's terse circumscription, for example. It's textbook, and that's one of my complaints with the film in general. There's no subtlety at all.
A squall is on the way, and all non-essential personnel have vacated, leaving the rest in what could also be considered a locked-room kind of narrative...except that we know Whodunit? What we don't know is how the shark got out...but wait, oh yeah, because reasons: of super intelligence.
We see Dr. Frankenshark continuing with her Success At All Costs, But At What Price? research efforts, her true agenda a secret from her colleagues as well as her boss, and there is also an directorial agenda (stated by Harlin in his commentary) to make her the real villain. I appreciate that she is a villain by virtue of her intelligence and although she is just another mad scientist, at least she is the one, because you see very few women occupying this trope.
This is followed by some dick-waving between Jackson and Jane, with Jane giving a Soul Surfer kind of vibe to The Shark Whisperer. Then we're in the kitchen with LL Cool J and he and that parrot are the heart of this story, thank you Jesus. That parrot, y'all, best thing in this movie. Everyone keeps staring at the portholes in an ominous fashion, which is telegraphing so hard you don't even need the music to do it.
We learn the bio-engineered sharks are much like the Velociraptors in Jurassic Park: fast, smart, vicious and they hunt in a pack. These sequences are the most obvious kind of CGI, and even with the advances they had at their disposal it's not entirely successful. Harlin notes in his commentary it was a composite of live action, animatronic and CGI elements in order to look seamless, but the problem is we can see the seams and that detracts from whatever scariness we're meant to experience.
Night falls on Aquatica...and the crew throws a surprise birthday party for Dr. Frankenshark, which is the payoff of the cake we saw earlier. Thank goodness, because I would have spent the entire movie worrying about whether anyone was able to eat the cake. It's important.
Cut to: Dr. Frankenshark and The Shark Whisperer having a moment, which is intercut with various exposition, and ultimately they are on opposite sides of whatever argument they're having, which again, there is no subtlety in this kind of trope. You're either for the sharks or you're exploiting the hell out of them For Science. And that's just so eye-rollingly obvious. Even with the consideration that Dr. Frankenshark is dealing with the pain of personal loss by said exploitation, Saffron Burrows' performance is little more than a cardboard cut-out...Harlin speaks of walking a fine line with the portrayals but I want to know what movie he's watching, because I don't think it's Deep Blue Sea.
Day two of The Isolation and most everyone gathers in the Wet Lab for the shark-and-shark show - mind you, this is a little over 20 minutes into the movie. The storm is closing in so there's another element of (expected) tension...this could be a Gothic romance, almost, just replace whatever supernatural beings with sharks. Seriously though, that swim by The Shark Whisperer through the murky lengths of the underwater cage? Pure Gothic terror right there. The sharks attempt to corner him in one section, again displaying a pack behavior which isn't supposed to be existent instinct. And then...they take out the surveillance cameras.
OH SH(ARK)!
The Shark Whisperer has one of those Don't Go In The Basement moments wherein he decides go outside the cage to check the cameras. Mind you, the other sharks ate the one he made friends with earlier, so this is the level of genius that the Aquatica braintrust exhibits on the whole. Most of the facility is underwater as well so...we already know how this is gonna go, right? Right. But then...FAKE OUT! The Shark Whisperer has fooled the super-smart shark stalking him and manages to tranquilize and bring it into the lab. Harlin notes that he went with a sort of Retro-Futurism look for the lab so it would be relatable to the audience. He states it is an "unusual" design, but...does no one know that nothing has been original since Alien, twenty years its' senior? And also again, nowhere near the dread factor of that movie.
There's an effective jump-scare in the examination sequence, but that's nothing compared to the OH SH(ARK)! moment when the sedated shark was only pretending to be sedated...and...Stellan Skarsgard's arm is the first casualty. Now, this causes The Shark Whisperer to attempt to go medieval on its amphibious ass, err, fin, but Dr. Frankenshark is having none of that - that's her prized lab shark which is going to cure Alzheimers with its super-smart brain fluid, so she sets it free. Something tells me she's gonna live to regret that decision...or not live, as the case may be.
So now they're attempting to Medivac the injured Stellan outta there stat, but when they get to the surface, HOLY STORM FRONT! Like I said, this might as well be a Gothic novel. And soon enough, the rest of him follows his arm as the first course. You know what they say: once it gets a taste for human flesh...and then both the Medivac helicopter and Brenda the Radio Gal are toast. The first time I saw this movie, I turned to my friend and said: "Whatcha wanna bet the fat chick gets it first?" I was pretty close, wouldn't you say? The fat chick is never the Final Girl, thank you sexist Hollywood filmmakers.
Everything just blows the fuck up, people fall over, chaos and panic ensue, we are now a little over half an hour into the movie. Not that we need any story when we can have explosions and mayhem by Harlin's logic, but seriously, we don't even know these characters, why should we feel sorry for any of them? Despite Renny's insistence that the pacing be fast because what matters is the shark, I disagree. The horror would be far more horrific if we were actually invested in the story and characters at all. Well okay, I care about the parrot, but that is it.
Meanwhile, literally everything blows the fuck up, and LL Cool J finds the cooking sherry miraculously spared, so he swigs it down. Drink up my man, because the shark has hit the fan for sure.
In the Wet Lab, everything is terrible, and they are all transfixed by something approaching the ginormous observation window...you know how on SNL they had that Candygram skit and it was always a landshark?
Yeah.
SPECIAL DELIVERY, HUMANS! THE SHARKS ARE 5000% DONE WITH YOUR SHIT.
The truly horrible thing is that Stellan is alive when the shark throws him into the observation window like a rabid UPS driver delivering a box of priceless bone china. Smash! And they're all just standing there, like, WHA?!, and Samuel L. Jackson calmly says, "Okay people, let's move," like it's a planned fire drill, but they don't move fast enough, of course, and the ocean seeks its natural level, as the ocean tends to do.
So everything is terrible and everyone is truly in a world of sunken shit. LL Cool J's character is having a conversation with his God, and the parrot is like, "Dude, do you know how to swim?" Meanwhile, Rapaport has informed everyone that there is no way out of this retrofitted submarine refueling depot death trap. Thomas Jane action-heros a map of the facility, and then LL Cool J makes it to one of the stairwells. But his parrot is the smartest animal in this movie because it flies the fuck out of there, y'all. Because we're all yelling DON'T GO UP THOSE STAIRS and he does it anyway. Just like the Itsy-Bitsy Spider he gets washed the hell out, tout de suite.
The Ocean is all LET ME IN and everyone else is all LET ME OUT and they make it to a maintenance shaft as the Implacable Tide of Water besieges them. Outside everything is terrible and terribly on fire - in the middle of a storm (yeah whatever) - and as Renny proclaims in his commentary: "You can swim, but you can't hide" (from the super-smart sharks who are comin' to getcha). Meanwhile, LL Cool J is looking for The Smartest Animal and The Best Character In This Movie, which doesn't appear to have an actual name. But Renny says it was two parrots from Mexico City, so I'm going to call the character Esteban. He's swim-walking through a hallway, and Esteban is mocking him, like, "Dude, follow the sound of my voice and you might possibly survive this clusterfuck."
There are parallel narrative tracks here, if you can call them that. The remainder of the Aquatica crew being all tense and fraught with peril and not wanting to drown or be eaten by sharks, and, LL Cool J and Esteban also trying not to drown or be eaten by sharks. I don't think this really works, exactly. Anyway, so Jackson and Jane are dick-waving again, and slowly coming to the realization that maybe the sharks are 5000% done with their shit, but The Shark Whisperer cannot abandon his empathy just yet, but A Significant Glance from Dr. Frankenshark tells us that the sharks are at least smart enough to kill them all eventually. Because humans will panic and turn on each other and be stupid, generally. And then Samuel L. Jackson turns on his pet researcher and demands to know what Dr. Frankenshark did because he's had it with these motherfucking sharks in this motherfucking ocean and...oh wait. Sorry, never mind. She tells him that she gave the sharks bigger brains to get more of the protein she needed so of course they're smarter. And when a super-smart shark is threatened, well...it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what happens after that. When you piss off a predator, super-smart or not, somebody's gonna get et.
There's tears and disbelief and frustration, and Samuel L. Jackson is thinking, "I did not fund you massive amounts of money to make me into Shark Chow!" And she's, like, "But we can save humanity with my valuable but ethically questionable research!" But everyone else is, like, "Nope." Dr. Frankenshark and The Shark Whisperer have another face off and he's all, "You know we're all gonna die, right?" Samuel L. Jackson tries to Think Tank a solution but no one cares. And they all walk away from Dr. Frankenshark, like, "So done with your shit too, missy."
Meanwhile, LL Cool J's search for Esteban continues. He's well on his way to a bad case of hypothermia (and that's not method acting, because the water in those tanks they shot in was cold), when he realizes he's on the menu (Get it, get it?! The cook is on the menu!). We cut back to the rest of the crew and I don't care about these people, seriously. They reach the Mini-Sub bay and, like their fate, it's pretty much fucked. We return to LL Cool J being Stalked By A Shark, already in progress. But my man shows some initiative and grabs an axe. He climbs up onto an equipment rack just as his nemesis catches up to him. Esteban startles him from the top shelf, and Harlin notes in his commentary that it is the classic "cat in the alleyway" horror movie jump-scare. Esteban lands on a floating pot and LL is all, this damn bird is gonna be the death of me, and tries to coax Esteban back onto his shoulder, or whatever. And...The Inevitable Thing happens.
RIP, Esteban. I hope you gave that shark severe indigestion.
But Renny Harlin pissed me off by saying in the commentary, "Thank goodness we got rid of that parrot, finally." Look man, that parrot was the best thing in your entire lame-ass movie, alright?! Everyone else can just die already, as far as I'm concerned. But no, that's not gonna happen...yet. So we've got the sub bay and the kitchen, and everyone's trying not to drown or get eaten by a shark. Samuel L.Jackson proclaims that they're all "going to have to swim out of here" and at this point I'm saying "Vaya con dios, y'all."
LL Cool J escapes a Hansel-and-Gretel fate by hacking his way out of an oven and trying to outswim a shark. Oh honey, seriously? But the shark turned on the oven and the gas is now filling the kitchen and LL busts out his waterproof Zippo...KABOOM! Now that's some MacGyver shit right there.
LL Cool J: 1 Sharks: 2
At this point in his commentary, Harlin admits that he is also cribbing from Alien in his choice of casting one big star and then some lesser-known actors. See? I told you guys, nothing is new at this point in the horror game. Or at least in this movie.
So now Samuel L. Jackson has his actual "I've had it with these motherfucking sharks in this motherfucking ocean" moment. LOL no, not really, but he's giving his "I have seen some shit, y'all, and I have done some things" speech, and then...
LL Cool J: 1 Sharks: 3
Sharks...still 5000% done with your shit. They ravenously chow down on Sam since Esteban wasn't even a snack, apparently. Everyone is reeling in horror, and...okay, I didn't really want Samuel L. Jackson to die. And I don't want LL Cool J to die. But everyone else? *rings dinner bell*
Speaking of everyone else, they decide to climb the elevator shaft and thereby flood the entire facility, which is already sinking and crumbling around them. Plus, the top of the shaft is on fire and burning debris is falling down into it. And I still don't care about them. One of the super-smart sharks goes right to the access hatch and rams into it.
Knock knock! Who's there? THE SHARKS, motherfuckers!
It gets in, of course, and Thomas Jane action-heros another solution, so everyone else is climbing towards the burning surface while he attempts to access one of the lower levels. I like that the score piece playing in this section is one of Trevor's "I'm going to save everyone" kind of themes. The man can write some Human Highlight Reel music, this we know. So the water is rising in the shaft, which means the shark is rising too. In other words, everything is terrible.
Then Renny admits that he ripped off his own movie in the next sequence, where the ladder falls down and The Shark Whisperer attempts to rescue The Other Researcher Whose Name I Can't Be Bothered To Remember, but she's blonde and cute. He says it's "a reenactment of the opening of Cliffhanger" and as such, the same fate awaits the girl.
LL Cool J: 1 Sharks: 4
There's only one girl left, I don't think there's gonna be a Final Girl in this movie, frankly. Everyone is upset - again - and I'm looking at Dr. Frankenshark, thinking: "Oh stop with your crocodile tears, lady. Nature finds a way, you know what I'm saying?" Things are increasingly more terrible, and it's at this point our Final Guy (well, I think he is) appears on a ledge and salutes then all, like, "Greetings my fellow menu items!" And they better respect, because my man killed a shark, which is more than they've done in the whole damn movie. They raid one of the rooms for anything they can use, and there's some levity and some emotion but as Harlin again notes, they don't go too deep because that's not what this movie is about. It's about super-smart sharks and the cardboard cut-out characters they eat. (Well no wonder they're always hungry!)
(Also, I kinda wanna go and watch all of Renny's movies to see if I can spot the Finnish flag he appears to place somewhere in each of them. Then again...maybe not.)
Renny has Rapaport and LL Cool J hug to attempt to inject some "human warmth" and...dude, seriously, that is not character development. We don't care because you didn't give us time to care. The characters have to split up again and at this point in his commentary Renny is discussing the sound design and scoring and he notes that Trevor spent a lot of time developing the theme for the sharks and purposely making it dissimilar to John Williams' theme for Bruce (the shark from Jaws). He says "I like the music of the film" and that is the only time he mentions Trevor in the commentary. For me, the cuts between the peril and the comic relief don't work in my estimation because it feels like the tension is being drawn out for too long.
There's a brief moment of triumph for Rapaport and then...
LL Cool J: 1 Sharks: 5
Renny says that the main impetus of the shark attacks is they want to destroy the facility and obtain their freedom. But since the whole place is falling down around them, and one of them had managed to escape already, they all would have been able to. So I call bullshit on that. They are 5000% done with your shit and they want revenge, it's just that simple.
Dr. Frankenshark is tip-toeing through the flooded corridor to get to her quarters, because she's got to retrieve her Results At All Costs, But At What Price? research, and the guys are back in the elevator shaft and realize she's missing and LL rather meta-esquely declares: "Aww, I'm done! Brothers never make it out of situations like this, not ever!"
(Hang on my man, I think you're gonna be the Final Guy.)
She gets jump-scared by her fake shark (which we see in an earlier scene) and then one of the real sharks appears and she's all, "Look, I made you super-smart! You should be thanking me!" And the shark is, like, "Nope, 'cause nobody like needles in their brain." After a prolonged game of doctor-and-shark...
Humans: 2 Sharks: 5
There's a lot of conventions at work is this movie: action thriller, haunted house story, locked-room mystery, slasher film, Gothic novel, science experiment gone awry...and it's kinda like a stew when you think it will be better if you keep adding stuff to it, but in the end it doesn't taste like anything at all. But maybe the worst is Harlin's admission that Saffron Burrows was required to strip down to bra-and-panties to kill the shark (supposedly with the excuse she was grounding herself by standing on her wetsuit when she electrocuted it) in a gesture which is displayed in almost every horror movie: women are punished for their sexuality. In this case, however, she's not being punished for enacting sexuality so much as just acknowledging the archetype of the maiden being menaced by the monster. As I said, I do appreciate that she has agency, but that was just blatantly exploitative.
And in the end her research is destroyed, so in essence nobody won. Unless you want to call surviving this disaster winning, but somehow I think she's ambivalent about that. She continues to look conflicted for the rest of the movie, unless that's her resting bitchface, so to speak.
The final escape plan is to flood one of the outer hatches then blow the door and ascend to the surface with life jackets and air tanks serving as decoys for the sharks, but I'm thinking if they've been underwater lower than, say, 30 feet they're going to risk the bends if they rise too fast. However, I know logic has no place in this movie. LL gets gnawed on a bit - in another homage to Jaws - but I told you, my man is a Final Guy.
On the surface, day three of The Isolation finds our protagonists upon the flaming ruins of Aquatica Research. The storm has passed, and they exposition about the sharks' master plan. Dr. Frankenshark insists, "It's her or us," and The Shark Whisperer is all, "WELL DUH." So they are loaded for bear, err, shark, because as we all know from Jaws, nothing works quite so well as BLOWING SH(ARK) UP. But there's a logistical snafu and so Dr. Frankenshark decides to sacrifice herself for the good of BLOWING SH(ARK) UP by chumming the water with her own blood and the remaining shark scents it, thinking, "Hey wait a minute, is that the blood of the woman who has performed bizarre and unnecessary experiments upon me and my kind?" And when she does get the attention of said shark, the good doctor wigs out and starts swimming for safety but then...
Humans: 2 Sharks: 6
But like I said, she seemed highly ambivalent about surviving, so perhaps it was for the best. The Shark Whisperer dove in after with some Quixotic notion in mind, and manages, with his shark whispering skills, not to get et. Meanwhile. LL Cool J has figured out the BLOWING SH(ARK) UP gambit and is ready to bite back, as it were. Plus, he has to do it
THEE END.
So a bit about the score...the official score album contains the main themes, there's only one actual cue. It's short but I think it's fully worth picking up if you do enjoy Trevor's scoring work. There's a grey-market DVD-rip containing all the cues and themes which you can find if you're of a mind to and know where to look. But one of the interesting things to me is the "Deepest Bluest" song by LL Cool J - even if you're not a fan of Hip Hop I would recommend giving it a listen because it's co-produced by Trevor and it contains elements of the score as well as a guitar part played by Trevor. I seem to recall there's an instrumental version too. There's also a seven-minute suite which isn't on the score album or in the end credits, but you can probably find it on YouTube.
What I like about the score overall is the use of piano and woodwinds to create that icy feeling of dread, but there's also a sense of space which fits with the milieu of the movie, taking place largely underwater. There's the orchestral grandeur and big dramatic passages which Trevor is most well-known for, as well as evocative guitar accents and swells of choir - it's all the elements which imbue his best work, and, quite frankly, gilds the lily a bit. But DBS needs that, it needs all the help it can get. It's a much more beautiful score than the movie deserves. And it lends a humanity to the movie which Harlin was attempting to create but he never quite gets there. Trevor's score reminds you to feel the things which the characters should be feeling, and underscores all the appropriate emotional cues, which is what a score needs to do. "Journey" has some interesting vocal/synth and percussive textures among the orchestral elements, and the "Main" track features the eerie theme he created for the sharks. "Hunting In Packs" contains a sort of whale song element to create an aquatic ambiance. "Shark Side" also has very interesting percussion textures which then flow into lovely orchestral passages.
Now this is not the first time I've mocked a movie of Renny's - those of you who have read some of my posts at Yesfans know I generally have this kind of attitude about his work. But I did want to suffer through this movie again if only because Trevor's score deserves recognition and appreciation...so buy the DVD, but only watch the documentary. Buy the CD, and enjoy Trevor's beautiful compositions. Don't go in the water...unless you know sharks have nothing against you. Because unless you remind them of a sea lion, they probably don't!
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