Music Composed by
Rating: *** 1/2

When it was announced last year that Brian Tyler was set to score Constantine, I was thrilled. The prospect of Keanu Reeves starring in a comic book adaptation about a renegade knight battling with Satan in the modern world hardly sounded promising as a film, but it sounded like a rip-roaring canvas for Tyler’s music and a great opportunity to attach his name to a possible blockbuster. But then, reason caught up with me – a young film composer who actually has distinct voice of his own gets a chance to rip loose on a high-profile studio project? Surely not, no! Why, think of the consequences that that could entail! Innocent audience members paying their hard-earned money for two hours of mindless escapism might be subject to the horrors of (gasp, shudder, snarl) real music! Well let me tell you, I could only thank my lucky stars that the heroic executives at Warner Brothers managed to catch that impetuous rascal Tyler before it was too late. After all, Tyler was young, and therefore must have been inexperienced in writing for a project of such high esteem and sophistication as a Keanu Reeves comic book adaptation. Tyler needed the guidance of a more experienced composer, a seasoned veteran who had proven his mastery of the delicate art of film music through years of hard work and an uncompromising commitment to originality. Someone like…Klaus Badelt?! Evidently, studio execs were hoping that lighting would strike again for the maestro who gave us Catwoman. Sarcasm aside (and I really, really hope that everybody knew I was being sarcastic), Tyler wrote and recorded a stunning score for Constantine, but for whatever reason, the Warner Brothers executives weren’t comfortable with the finished product. Surprisingly though, rather than outright fire Tyler, they allowed him to stay on board for the rewrites, and only hired Klaus Badelt to replace certain passages of Tyler’s original score. The end result could best be described as a median between a rejected score and a replacement score, neither entirely satisfying nor entirely outrageous.

Brian Tyler

But before we look into the domesticated mixed-breed that Constantine became, let’s take a look at the initial score Tyler recorded before the long stage-hook of studio intervention yanked him off-stage in the middle of his demonic soft-shoe solo, before the test screen audiences had the chance to hurl their rotten eggs and tomatoes of placid disgust onto the stage of the film’s box office take (this is why I don’t usually write metaphors). Having had the rare opportunity to listen to both Tyler’s original score and the studio-hybrid that followed, I can see quite clearly that the major changes came in nixing Tyler’s massive and ferocious action-horror cues. This is quite a shame, but hardly a surprise; Tyler’s action writing has never been for the feint-hearted, and Constantine takes his aggressive and uncompromising approach to a staggering new level. Thrashing percussion, shrieking strings, wailing choir, growling brass, wood-saw rhythms – hell, take every conceivable approach for dissonant horror writing, hurl it together full force on the scoring stage and triple the intensity, and you’ve got some idea of what you’re dealing with here. This is both a return to and the evolution of the territory Tyler marked a few years ago in scores like Terror Tract and Darkness Falls. Constantine one-upped all of his previous entries in the genre however, partially because his writing is so much more confident and developed now, but primarily because the scope and spectacle of these assaults has expanded to statelier heights. This is largely due to prominence of choir (sometimes as a moaning wordless mass, sometimes softly intoning Latin) and the occasional cavalcade of church bells (as in “Absentee Landlords”), both of which bring a sense of religious proportion to the unabashed bombast. Add to that Tyler’s growing flair for malevolent theatrics (Elliot Goldenthal’s influence has never been stronger), and you have a musical force that truly will make you feel as though the fires of hell have flooded over your speakers.

Klaus Badelt

Very little of this made it into the finished product, unfortunately. You can still hear hints of the growling beast Tyler initially crafted in cues like “Lucifer” and “Absentee Landlords,” but for the most part, Badelt and the studio effectively put that beast to sleep. In its stead, we have vaguely Middle-Eastern electronica, the sort of bleak world music grooves that Media Ventures alumni write subconsciously while brushing their teeth. These are Badelt’s contributions and because Tyler’s original score was already flavored with Middle-Eastern touches, they don’t clash quite as hideously as they might have with the style of the rest of the score. They do, however, clash about as hideously as one could imagine with the quality of the rest of the score. In the past, I’ve occasionally defended the Media Ventures clan and the growing prominence of Middle Eastern stylizations in film music, but this mediocre droning is just hackwork, plain and simple. Varese Sarabande thankfully caught on to this too and minimized on the Badelt material on the disc, but the few remaining Badelt cues will likely compel you to swat at your skip button as though batting away a mosquito (which is what much of his material sounds like).

But, you might ask, if Tyler’s raging demons were given the axe and Badelt’s material is downplayed on the disc, what music fills out this 50-minute album? Well, Tyler also wrote a good deal of subtle but expertly crafted underscore for the moments between the chaos in his original film. As with Frailty and The Final Cut, the material was understated, but Tyler’s crafted it with enough instrumental color and thematic layering to make for an engaging listening experience. You would think that this material would have remained untouched in the final film, but for whatever reason Tyler was forced to go back and rework most of his music here as well. These revisions are what make up the bulk of the final score for Constantine and the music you have on this album. To be fair, they aren’t radically different from what he initially wrote, and there are still plenty of highlights to be found. “Circle of Hell” contains some surprisingly warm moments of restrained majesty, while a delicate piano solo in “John” carries some genuinely affecting sadness. In fact, there are probably more emotionally vulnerable moments in the Tyler’s revised version than there were in his initial score, which should theoretically make it an improvement. The problem is that the tight structure that Tyler initially gave the score more or less disappeared in the revisions. The fragile main theme, so carefully developed in the original score, has all but been eliminated (though you can hear wisps of it in “Deo et Patri”) and there isn’t really anything strong enough in the revised version to take its place. The original score may not have been as easily emotionally accessible, but the wavering sense of unease it created by juxtaposing hesitant spirituality against violent freewheeling dissonance was ultimately far more powerful.

However, the sad fact of contemporary film music is that the only thing more rare than a score with this much depth and uncompromising personality is a score with this much depth and uncompromising personality actually surviving the studio gauntlet. As it was initially conceived, written, and recorded, Constantine is one of Tyler’s most accomplished works to date. As it was ultimately butchered, revised, pasted, and market-tested, however, Constantine is something of a hodge-podge of strong pieces and hack cues that never gels. For Tyler fans, the CD is probably still worth picking up as the highlights that managed to survive the transition are well-worth hearing (for some, the biblical majesty in “Resurrection” may be worth the album price alone). Even Tyler’s revised material is strong, and if you program the hideous Badelt tracks out, Constantine can make for a smooth and consistent listening experience. But consistency is about all you’re going to get out what should have been a expertly structured tour-de-force, and for that we have all been thoroughly cheated once again, by a studio system convinced that ramming placid mediocrity down its audience members’ throats is somehow going to draw more people to the cinema.

Music Composed by Brian Tyler and Klaus Badelt; Conducted by Brian Tyler; Orchestrated by Robert Elhai, Dana Nui, Brad Warnaar and Brian Tyler; Recorded and Mixed by Joel Iwataki; Produced by Brian Tyler and Klaus Badelt; Availability: In print; Label (Catalogue): Varèse Sarabande, (302 066 636 2); Release Date: February 15, 2005

01. Destiny (2′00)
02. The Cross Over (2′42)
03. Meet John Constantine (2′39)
04. Confession (2′32)
05. Deo Et Patri (1′16)
06. Counterweight (2′47)
07. Into The Light (2′53)
08. I Left Her Alone (1′40)
09. Resurrection (2′04)
10. Circle Of Hell (5′38)
11. Last Rites (1′55)
12. Encountering A Twin (1′06)
13. Flight To Ravenscar (0′52)
14. Humanity (2′58)
15. John (1′31)
16. Someone Was Here (1′44)
17. Hell Freeway (2′43)
18. Ether Surfing (1′13)
19. The Balance (2′26)
20. Absentee Landlords (1′35)
21. John’s Solitude (1′25)
22. Lucifer (1′56)
23. Rooftop (1′18)
24. Constantine End Titles (2′39)

Total Playing Time: 51′32