Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... only if there is no end to your tolerance of James Horner's regurgitated Scottish and light string mannerisms, both of which pleasantly extended into this generic effort. Avoid it... if you demand more than the static tone of yesteryear's Horner melodies and rehashed Scottish rhythms for pipes in your inspirational sports dramas. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius: (James Horner) The plotline of the cinematic telling of Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius could seem like 120 minutes of torture if you're not enthusiastic about golf and its history. Robert Tyre Jones, Jr. remains the one and only person to have ever won the title of Grand Slam Champion by winning the British Amateur, the British Open, the U.S. Open, and the U.S. Amateur, all in 1930. Having done so at the age of 28, Jones is the subject of biographical treatment in this film, which depicts his life up to and including that golfing record. It's a no-thrills detailing of Jones' sickly childhood, his "miracle" year of performance on the golf courses of Scotland and America, and his ultimate decision to retire early to spend time with his family. The film was pounded by critics for being a boring examination of an event that few people really care about, with poor cast performances (led by Jim Caviezel fresh from his suffering portrayal of Jesus in The Passion of the Christ) and sappy, unoriginal photography of golf courses. If you go back through the rather stark history of golfing films (Tin Cup, Caddyshack, The Legend of Bagger Vance, etc), there really is a limit to the originality with which you can make an interesting dramatic film about the sport and, more specifically, one golfer. This problem extends to the original scores for these films, though Rachel Portman managed to strike one very popular and magical exception with The Legend of Bagger Vance in 2000. Since the meat of Bobby Jones is based in Scotland, the producers of the film sought the services of James Horner in order to reinvent his own wildly popular 1995 score for Braveheart in a more personalized fashion. After producing four scores all for release in the last two months of 2003, Horner continued his fast pace of writing with both his replacement score for Troy and a his heartfelt work for Bobby Jones, both of which released on album on the same day in May, 2004. Fortunately for the composer, Bobby Jones is a score that Horner could have written in his sleep, and, in most of its parts, it sounds like he just may have been asleep while writing it. The film didn't necessary demand much of Horner; its emotional depth could have been greater had the filmmaking been of better quality, but as it stands, a very stereotypically soft ethnic and string score from Horner suffices at every turn without presenting any substantively new ideas. Despite a press release and a few fanatical Horner enthusiasts' assertions that Bobby Jones is a "magical" score, it's clearly evident that less magic went into this work than into Field of Dreams, which remains an important sports and family-related score in Horner's career despite its overrated status. The largely string tone for Bobby Jones has lyricism and harmony pleasant enough to lull the listener into a gentle snooze, with a repetitive theme that experiences several similar variations throughout the score. Horner produced so many of these string themes since the early 1990's that it becomes difficult to pinpoint which one of them that Bobby Jones most resembles, though a noble rising structure first heard as a supplemental idea in "Baby Stokes" is copied in its entirety from as far back as Glory. The heavy layering of these string swells in "Destined for Greatness" represents the sole memorable highlight of the score. A solo horn announces the vistas of the golf courses in solemn tributes to the game in a few cues. A distant solo drum beat can often be heard in latter stages, perhaps hushing the orchestra in the same funny manner that golf announcers always whisper into the microphone. More important are half a dozen outbursts of Scottish flavor with Uilleann pipes, guitars, and ethnic woodwinds that pick up the rhythm and serve to represent the Scottish golfing locations. This familiar personality for Horner smacks the listener early in the score, and if any part of Bobby Jones could produce eye-rolling sarcasm or allergic reactions, it will be this highly derivative material. Whether laced with Scottish spirit or not, the thematic progressions in Bobby Jones are all so mundane, pleasant, and lengthy in their slow performances that you don't leave this score with a tune in your head. Rather, a soft and cozy emotional impression is left, without a single convincingly darker moment existing to vary the mood. It's difficult to recommend this score to anyone who already has a healthy dose of Horner music in his or her collection, because it will be so redundant that its value is greatly diminished. Despite its own set of flaws, the concurrently released Troy was at least a far more interesting listening experience. The album for Bobby Jones presents an overly-generous 60+ minutes of a score that could have easily sufficed with a 45-minute release. It confirmed that the composer was sinking further and further into his own abyss of self-regurgitation, and unless you have a special place in your heart for Bobby Jones as a film, then skip this score in favor of one of Horner's many other, often more interesting variants on the same style. ** Track Listings:
Total Time: 63:24
All artwork and sound clips from Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius are Copyright © 2004, Varèse Sarabande. The reviews and notes contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Filmtracks Publications. Audio clips can be heard using RealPlayer but cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 5/13/04, updated 10/14/11. Review Version 4.1 - PHP (Filmtracks Publications). Copyright © 2004-2013, Christian Clemmensen. All rights reserved. |
