Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if you are not daunted by the frenzied, wacky atmosphere of Danny Elfman's vivacious cartoon and comedy music, connecting Flubber to the composer's earliest, zany ventures of the 1980's. Avoid it... if you'd prefer your sanity left intact and you have no need for wild mambo music with which to irritate nearby dwellers. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
Flubber: (Danny Elfman) Disney's live action films if the 1990's, devoid of any refreshingly new ideas, were often based on the studio's hits from a previous generation. One such entry in 1997 was Flubber, a revision of 1961's The Absent-Minded Professor and its 1963 sequel. The material from the original film wasn't that strong to begin with, and a wretched script for Flubber stole what few laughs existed previously and ruined them with terrible rewrites, unnecessary displays of special effects, a cast that really didn't seem to care, and a score by Danny Elfman that tries far too hard to compensate for those shortcomings. With the energizing balls of green goo and Robin Williams in the lead, you wouldn't think that Flubber needed life support from Elfman, though the score would test the limits of Elfman's most zany writing, his creative crew, and the flair of mambo rhythms. The composer's scores at the time were exploring an awkward return to his wild mid-80's film and television music, both cartoonish and obscure, all the while maintaining hints of the tragedy from his classic scores of the early 90's and the electric instrumentation that immediately followed. Between Mars Attacks!, Men in Black, and Flubber, you hear significant similarities. This, the last of those three scores, would lack the cohesion that existed in the other two, wandering through three genres within the score with little to hold it together. The spirit and ambience of the ensemble is largely the same, however. A moderate orchestral ensemble is led by distinctive roles for piano, theremine, electric bass, saxophone, and trumpet, creating a sound largely indistinguishable from Men in Black in many cues. The mood of Flubber takes those similarities to Men in Black and infuses them with incessantly cute and hyperactive rhythms and motifs. In terms of themes, Flubber does have some fleeting ideas, but the score relies far more heavily on the general attitude of its three parts to identify with the various situations in the film. What themes do exist are often so wildly arranged and orchestrated that you'll have very little likelihood of humming them to yourself after the album is finished. Depending on your taste (or amount of prescription drugs in your system), this score could either launch you up to dance around the room or run screaming from it. Your mood and tolerance level for Elfman's zany, unpredictable styling will determine which it is. Of the score's three personalities, the wild, cartoonish movements for the professor are perhaps the least interesting. Elfman had taken the Carl Stalling style of Warner Brothers cartoon music to wacky distances with his Pee Wee scores in the 1980's, and some of that explosively bizarre material resumes here. Early sections of the score throw in the theremine to accentuate the mysterious nature of the professor's new creation. The second personality within the score is the sentimental side, which only prevails a few times (later) with any great length. The wistful and tender interludes for strings and piano (primarily for Weebo) are so dominated by the surrounding action that they don't have the opportunity to establish a mood consistent with Elfman's best material from the early 90's. The third portion of the score is ironically both the best and the most obnoxious. For the green blob itself, Elfman fashions a mambo rhythm and adventurous theme for trumpet. While provided in hints in "Main Title," the mambo announces its maturity in "Mambo in the Sky" before continuing with lengthier statements in "Mambo del Flubber" and "End Credits." The latter two cues include a variety of real and sampled vocal effects, with "Mambo del Flubber" certain to both amaze and irritate simultaneously. This cue, brought to life with the help of composer and conductor Mark McKenzie, is mostly an exercise in patience and tolerance, though its speaker-bouncing effects are the kind of annoyance that any good roommate should keep in his or her collector to occasionally whip out on unsuspecting apartment neighbors. Overall, Flubber is an extraordinary exhibition of Elfman's talents, but as some of his music in the 80's proved, the composer's most lively kiddie action and comedy material borders on being unlistenable. The song "Goo a Little Dance," featured prominently in the film's trailers, is appended to the end of the album. Extreme Elfman fans, suck it up. You'll be the only ones. ** Track Listings:
Total Time: 47:11
All artwork and sound clips from Flubber are Copyright © 1997, Disney Records. 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 11/18/97, updated 2/26/08. Review Version 4.1 - PHP (Filmtracks Publications). Copyright © 1997-2013, Christian Clemmensen. All rights reserved. |
