Buy it... only if you are absolutely in love with the music from Cocoon, because this sequel score is largely a regurgitation of nearly every moment from that strong work.

Avoid it... if you're expecting to hear James Horner take the franchise's sound in a fresh new direction, despite the extensive infusion of more vintage jazz into the equation.

Horner

Cocoon: The Return: (James Horner) What's the point? Ah yes, profits. Who can argue with a studio determined to reprise a popular concept in nearly an identical sequel just to fleece bored audiences of some extra cash? There is no good reason for the 1988 film Cocoon: The Return to exist, outside of studio greed and a feeling of nostalgia on the part of some audiences for its 1985 predecessor. The same cast of familiar veteran actors returned for a second splash in the water, as did nearly all of the auxiliary character actors. The retired folks beamed into the sky by alien creatures in the plot of the first film have been living a life without worries in a silver city beneath three moons on a far away planet. When the aliens need to return to Earth to recover their remaining cocoons, one of which raised from the ocean floor and probed by the military, they allow their adopted humans to return for a few days to visit with their families on Earth. This setup allows Cocoon: The Return to basically rehash all of the dilemmas from the first film, following the decision-making process of each of the returning characters in their determinations to leave again or stay. This yields another whole round of tearful goodbyes and wondrous scenes of lights from the sky, all of which effectively appealing though highly redundant. While nearly all of the cast from Cocoon returned for the sequel, most of the crew did not; gone was director Ron Howard and his usual collaborators, writers, photographers, and, with them, the Steven Spielberg influence on the production. In their place was a list of lesser talent, with the curious exception of James Horner, whose score for Cocoon is both strong in context and a fan-favorite on album. Horner, despite his claims to be adverse to covering familiar territory in the form of bland sequels (at least as he stated in relation to his self-extraction from some franchises), has several times taken exactly such assignments, and Cocoon: The Return is about as predictable as one could get. There is no doubt that Horner's combination of early jazz and melodramatic orchestral themes was an important factor in the motional appeal of the first film, but to hear the exact same score regurgitated once again is, despite the general quality of Horner's sound for the concept, somewhat discouraging. Cocoon: The Return isn't a concerted improvement over the original, as Horner so surprisingly accomplished later with The Legend of Zorro over its predecessor, for instance.

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The ingredients of Cocoon were fairly standard to Horner's career, and Cocoon: The Return only reinforces them. The sole sense of life and spirit in the sequel score exists in the three or four outbursts of vintage jazz, led by extended performances in "Taking Bernie to the Beach" and "Basketball Swing." Horner has emulated the sound of Glenn Miller several times in his career (especially in *batteries not included), but never has he so directly taken fragmented excerpts from existing jazz standards of the era for his scores. So while this vintage sound in Cocoon: The Return may provide the album with its only spark of energy, it's as familiar (and potentially as tired) as the orchestral passages in the score. The totality of the full ensemble material in the sequel score is comprised of rearrangements of the themes from the first film, with "Returning Home" serving as an auxiliary concert version of the first score's major ideas. From the weighty string theme of pastoral character to the flighty, accelerating flute effect representing the fantasy element, all of the ideas you remember from the first score are present here. The secondary themes representing the old folks are equally omnipresent, culminating in a predictable reprise in "Rescue: The Ascension." All of these themes are quite attractive, especially for those who sought Cocoon as an early representation of Horner's trademark dramatic sound, though the performances of these ideas in Cocoon: The Return, while still utilizing the same percussive effects to embellish the sense of wonder, are not as fully symphonic in their representations. The difference in gravity between the two scores shouldn't deter the latter entry from holding a place in the collection of a sincere Cocoon enthusiast, however. Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the second score is its total inability to generate either a new thematic construct of note or any substantial material for the military/rescue subplot. Solo acoustic guitar tones in "Joe's Gift" and "Growing Old" will be somewhat fresh, and some mundane but serviceable action material at the outset of "Rescue: The Ascension" might satisfy some listeners, but on the whole, Cocoon: The Return is as stale as Horner could have possibly made it. Unlike its predecessor, this score has only been released on album once. The early Varèse Sarabande product of 1988 is long out of print, though its prices haven't skyrocketed to outlandish values in part likely because the score is so redundant. This film didn't need anything more than what it got from Horner, but it's still disappointing. **   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download

Bias Check:

For James Horner reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.13 (in 98 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.25 (in 184,725 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.