In many ways Trevor Rabin represents the modern breed of film composer, comfortable with both orchestral and electronic scoring and something like this latest Arnold Schwarzebegger action-fest demonstrates a propensity for the latter rather well.
The title track begins in a somewhat dirge-like fashion with Middle Eastern wailing voices but perks up mid-way with some rumbustious, adrenaline pumping frills and spills. The ever-present synthesiser dominates ‘In the Beginning’, a brief but sprightly cue with a compulsive sequencer line and ‘Cloning’ develops this key motif amidst an electronic choral background. The far more emotive ‘Adam’s Theme’ is the score’s other significant melody, although it is rather too reminiscent of the composer’s End Title (co-written with Harry Gregson Williams) from Enemy of the State. This theme is reprised briefly in various other tracks like ‘Playing God’, which also features a John Carpenteresque bass line (actually it’s more like Morricone from Carpenter’s The Thing!!) and in more expansive versions on ‘Adam Goes Home’ and ‘The Kiss’, which has a slight Caribbean flavour. In other places there is some solid if uninspired action cues as in ‘The Rescue’ and ‘Kill the Doctor’, although ‘The Roof Top’ has a excitingly frantic pace with some strong melodic work in the latter stages.
Rabin is fast becoming one of the leading purveyors of this kind of synth heavy, action/suspense soundtrack and to give him his due his work here is very accomplished, if at times a little generic. Perhaps looking for more than what he has delivered, given the nature of the project, would simply be asking too much. Perhaps.
Mark Hockley
OST
