Hans Zimmer is back in cinemas, delivering a soundtrack to the blockbuster "F1" as subtle as the rattling of engines.

The question of what would be louder, the Formula 1 cars in "F1" with Brad Pitt or the music that the German star composer Hans Zimmer would compose for the film, is already answered during the title sequence: Zimmer's typical electronic drone clearly wins the decibel contest in the cinema.

At some point, one of his catchy themes, consisting of a few chords, kicks in, and you realize once again that we live in the age of Zimmer. That is, it drones and simultaneously leads into melancholic spheres, and somehow everything seems as if you've heard it somewhere else before. A canned version of the era, as musically impoverished as it is effective.

It's no surprise that Zimmer provides the perfect music for the racing car spectacle; after all, he was commissioned by BMW a few years ago to "compose" the engine sounds for electric cars. His sound has long since become the epitome of a strange idea of ​​haptics, movement, and testosterone.

What rattling engines once triggered in men's abdomens now applies to Zimmer's light music. It conveys a sense of meaning where emptiness reigns. It only works loudly. Its goal is immersion.

Long gone are the days when a major Hollywood production like "Planet of the Apes" could boast the avant-garde music of Jerry Goldsmith. In the age of Zimmer, it's the effect that counts, not the music. Zimmer's approach has been quite revolutionary over the years.

No one has distorted cellos as brutally as he has, no one has copied himself so ruthlessly. Few have created so much space with so few minor chords. This has given him a monopoly. For many, he is now the epitome of film music.

When you say Zimmer, you really mean Remote Control Productions, a company he co-founded that produces film music on an assembly line. Zimmer is a factory. Due to copyright laws in the US, he is sometimes celebrated for musical themes he didn't even write himself. Up to 100 assistants work for him and assign the rights to their own compositions.

It's no wonder that the composer fills stadiums on his tours, playing his most famous themes with a contrived rock-star attitude. Orchestral sounds provide a space for collective film memories, a more than lucrative side business for the producer. Music from the films "Inception," "Gladiator," and "Interstellar," for example, is played live (again in Zurich in November). The soundtrack to the latter demonstrates the composer's flair for the instrumentation of his scores, creating a beguiling sound with organ sounds in space.

Despite such surprising instrumentation, Zimmer always delivers exactly what you expect. There's probably no composer an AI could imitate better. His music underscores the images and inflates them. None of his themes contradicts the obvious. His musical idea for race cars: adrenaline. His theme for "Batman": the beating of wings. His association with "Dune": ethnic kitsch for desert dwellers.

It's not difficult to demonize Zimmer. But it's not quite that simple, because one shouldn't hold the undercomplexity of his music against him. Ultimately, he's simply serving the undercomplexity of the blockbusters for which he or one of his collaborators is composing. Three chords, thrumming in endlessly swelling loops beneath the images, are enough to once again tell of the impending end of the world or of music.