The Kingdom

Monkeydust is one of the few reasons that BBC3 should exist. Instead of the usual warming ground for disappointing sitcoms or repeats of Doctor Who (which are, admittedly, very welcome), it occasionally features something really good and Monkeydust is one such show. Scathing in its satire of modern Britain, it's almost comparable to South Park, but goes about it in an entirely different way, mixing some superb animation with modern instrumental trance and dance tracks (it works better than it sounds). One particular thematic parody are three spoofs of American movies, which cast a typically diverse mixture of all American heroes, one pitting them against the Nazis (casting Hitler, rather hilariously, as an archetypal British villain), one in Arthurian times (think, A Knight's Tail), but perhaps the best is basically a spoof of Black Hawk Down. Sadly, the second and third series haven't made it to DVD, but fortunately YouTube comes to the rescue.
The reason for the preamble is as something to bear in mind before watching The Kingdom which is about as close to a balanced view on the Middle East as any mainstream blockbuster can muster, but still ripe for biting satire. Of course that has little bearing on Danny Elfman's score which is, I must admit, one of his least interesting in some time. It's one of those scores that has nothing intrinsically wrong with it, but isn't especially exciting on disc, coming across as a low key, stripped down version of a Bourne score. In fairness to Elfman, his mixture of synths and orchestra is every bit as skillful as Powell's, although the electronics dominate rather more here. The brevity of many of the cues doesn't give them a great deal of room to expand upon their ideas and tracks such as To the Prince's (to his what exactly, we aren't informed) are over before they really get going. The quieter tracks have a curious electric guitar twang vibe going on; Waiting, Friendship (ah, bless) and the early seconds of Digging Deep sound like they've escaped from another score entirely - Con Air perhaps.

Things hot up a little towards the end and The Chase makes greater use of the orchestra and, as a result, is far more interesting than what precedes it. However, anyone whose soul isn't stirred into life by 2007 electronics is likely to have lost interest by that point anyway. After the melodic sumptuousness of his recent more family orientated fare, the sparse, electronic percussion beds of The Kingdom just don't seem all that interesting and while none of the tracks are long enough to be deemed to lose focus, there's not a great deal of variety between them and it all starts to sound the same by the end. The quiet episodes are nice, but are a bit too casual and laid back to feel they add any sense of depth to the album. Even compared to other somewhat atypical Elfman scores (Proof of Life is perhaps the closest) it comes across as fairly weak in purely musical terms. Still, I'm sure Elfman will dive headlong back into fantasy soon enough... wait until then.

The Kingdom gaat over een aanslag op Amerikanen in Saoedi Arabië. Jamie Foxx speelt de rol van Ronald Fleury. Hij is FBI agent en wordt er met zijn team op uitgestuurd om de verantwoordelijken van deze aanslag op te pakken. Regisseur Peter Berg deed voor deze film beroep op componist Danny Elfman. Elfman is vooral gekend om zijn groots uitgewerkte thema’s. Hij houdt van dramatiek en is een krak met de percussie. Het enige wat overblijft voor The Kingdom is de percussie. De soundtrack bevat weinig drama en het thema is een niet bijster originele melodie, gespeeld op een electrische gitaar. Vanaf de eerste noten wordt je als luisteraar overrompeld door de percussie welke overgoten is met een elektronisch sausje. De sample machine maakt overuren en Danny Elfman klopt er vrolijk op los. Dit is niet iets wat je onmiddellijk van de componist zou verwachten. Ik vond het ook raar dat Elfman bijna of geen blazers gebruikt heeft in deze score. Het gebruik van etnische instrumenten heeft hij ook tot een minimum beperkt. Wie goed luistert herkent Elfman’s stijl maar dan wel op steroïden. De soundtrack moet het vooral hebben van snelle actie gedreven nummers.

The Kingdom mag dan misschien niet de beste score zijn van Danny Elfman maar toch heeft het iets. Deze geordende chaos is een kruising tussen Planet of The Apes, Proof of Life en een vleugje Men In Black 2. Hoogtepunt van de score is The Chase.