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Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if you've ever been curious about what playful mayhem James Horner could stir up when combining the animated and Western genres into one wild score. Avoid it... if you'd rather not hear Horner adapt Aaron Copeland, along with a few others, in extremely obvious fashion. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
The songs in Fievel Goes West play a lesser role in the success of this overall package than in the first one. The main theme is based on the Golden Globe nominated "Dreams to Dream," a lovely ballad performed both in character and by Linda Ronstadt at the end of the film. The standard pop vocal version is anonymous in Horner's career (Ronstadt replaced Horner's first choice of performer, Celine Dion, because the film's producers claimed that no one had ever heard of Dion), though the character performance, while grating perhaps due to the high pitch of the girl's voice, is one of Horner's better presentations. The other two are wild opposites: "Way Out West" is an enthusiastic throwback to Rodgers and Hammerstein stage territory while "The Girl You Left Behind" is an actual stage performance by the mouse that wouldn't be missed. As for the score, Horner returns to the London Symphony Orchestra, whose performance for Fievel Goes West is no less than fantastic. Specialty instruments for the location include xylophones, fiddles, banjos, harmonicas, and the usual array of wood and metal percussion. The highlights of the full ensemble performances are the several cues in which Horner blatantly pulls Copeland's rodeo music, ambitious string and light percussion rhythms with brass motifs that frankly could have resulted in a lawsuit. Most obviously conveyed in "In Training," Horner also extends this sound to the middle of the "Overture," "Building a New Town," and "The Shoot-Out," the last of which containing some unconventional sounds in tribute to Ennio Morricone in the first thirty seconds. Horner also pulls some inspiration from Elmer Bernstein in the rolling rhythms of "Headin' Out West," though like most of the aforementioned cues, the repackaging of these ideas is so well accomplished by Horner (and sometimes in parody fashion) that you have to forgive him this time. A frenetic jazzy swing at the start of "Cat Rumble" is another humorous highlight. The more conventional orchestral drama is a cross between The Land Before Time and Cocoon; Horner only employs a choir twice in the score, most notably for the score's only scary, Willow-like slashing moment in "Sacred Mountain." The final score cue wraps up the new themes and fades away with a reminder of the first film's two primary themes, a somewhat melancholy way to finish the otherwise upbeat proceedings. Overall, if you can forgive Horner for his obvious inspirations in Fievel Goes West, then you'll enjoy his own rare journey to the West. ****
* contains whole or partial segments of vocal song performances
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