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Jeff
Danna, younger brother of fellow composer Mychael Danna, is a versatile and
resourceful professional. He began his career scoring for television
programs such as Beverly Hills, 90210, and is best known for somber
or gentle scores for films like "O", Uncorked and Green
Dragon. For The Gospel of John, Danna painstakingly researched
ancient instruments from the time of Jesus to create an authentic score as
well as incorporating full orchestra and choir. Now Resident Evil:
Apocalypse, the second film based on the famous Capcom's Survival Horror
video game series, marks the composer's first effort in a Sci-Fi / horror
adventure.
The first film featured a noisy Marco
Beltrami/Marilyn Manson score that missed part of the mood and ambience
from the game soundtracks. For this sequel the filmmakers decided to hire
Danna to move the movie franchise's music towards new directions, and even
unfamiliar with the games or this genre of films, the composer decided to
face the challenge. After some research about horror movies and the Resident
Evil game series, his approach was to interlace classic symphonic
orchestration (which means bringing a large orchestra to the process) with
electronic instrumentation. Danna composed about 90 minutes of music for the
film, and this soundtrack CD retains about 40 minutes of the score. The
music was recorded at George Martin's Air Studios London with the 75-piece
London Philharmonia, the same group Danna and his orchestrator, Nicholas
Dodd, had used for their previous score, The Gospel of John.
Danna's score starts out very ethereally and mysteriously with "My Name
is Alice", but quickly launches into a dynamic drive, riveted with
guitars and electronic instrumentation. In its essence Resident Evil:
Apocalypse is a very expansive score, having a very dominant orchestral
sweep while, at the same time, carrying on this pulsing, heavy-metallic
drive from the electronics and the electric guitars. In general terms the
score shares a little in common with the game music in its driving, action
pulse. But while there are a few recurring themes, the score is more of an
ambient, textural composition, centering around the usage of electronically
samples acoustic sounds that Danna uses to create the film's sound design.
The Nemesis is one of the few exceptions, as for his theme Danna employed a
kind of bizarre, electronic sound that goes with the creature.
To my mind, it is unfortunate that the score suffers from this lack of more
traditional thematic material (by the way: I'm a big theme-guy). And yes,
the score, like its predecessor, also has some noisy moments to compensate
this lack of themes or motifs, but at these parts the orchestra displays
some impressive action material, performed by jumpy strings and harsh brass
tones ("Alice Battles the Nemesis", "Cain's Demise",
"Dogs in the Kitchen"). On the other hand, there is some
sentimentality and sadness in tracks like "The Crash Site" and
"Searching for Alice". Well, that's it. If Resident Evil:
Apocalipse can't be considered Danna's best work, surely it represents a
promising introduction of the composer to this genre. |
