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Green Lantern: (James Newton Howard) Considered at
one point to be the most anticipated comic book adaptation film of 2011,
Green Lantern landed on Earth with a tremendous thud. Warner
Brothers reportedly spent upward of $300 million making and promoting
the DC Comics characters' debut on the big screen, only to see it
struggle to recoup half of that amount at the worldwide box office. The
concept had been batted around by several studios for decades before
Martin Campbell stepped in to helm
Green Lantern through
production hazards that included significant script re-writes and late
special effects work that required Warner to pump more money into the
film just to meet its target debut date. A solid pummeling by critics
defined the movie as little more than a sound and light show, and fans
dumped it almost immediately after its initial theatrical flourish. The
plot of
Green Lantern serves as an origins story for the concept
and its main character, and for those of you not familiar with the DC
storyline, it suffices to say that a group of wacky-looking aliens
called the "Green Lantern Corps" protects the universe by assigning a
"Green Lantern" (a representative from a myriad of species that have
special powers bestowed upon them) to each sector of space. When a nasty
fear-mongering being called Parallax runs loose, kills one of these
protectors, and eventually ends up on Earth (plenty of hot babes and tax
loopholes on this planet), an average American male is absurdly chosen
to be the Green Lantern for this sector and trained by an understandably
hesitant mentor. Proving that humans aren't so damn dumb and hopeless as
a trip to Wal-Mart would otherwise indicate, the new superhero of our
region does his thing in a grand show of bravery and says the oath of
his group to pave the way for the sequels the studio was hoping to
green-light before abysmal returns muted such banter. Apparently asleep
during half of that show was composer James Newton Howard, a veteran of
superhero movies who is typically considered to be a counterweight to
the flow of generic blockbuster noise emanating from his friend Hans
Zimmer's clone factory.
As with the film, the score for
Green Lantern
was widely anticipated to be a bright point of the summer season, but
likewise, score fans were quickly slapped in the face by a degenerate
mash of rhythmic sound design with a derivative theme, tired orchestral
techniques and looped banging from other films (and likely a temp
track), and only a few occasional moments of symphonic and choral glory
to connect this score whatsoever with Howard's superior, recognizable
style from assignments that must have inspired him more than this one.
As unimpressive as some fans may have found Henry Jackman's concurrent
X-Men: First Class to be, Howard's contribution to
Green
Lantern is surprisingly worse by a fair margin. There isn't even
much movement on the guilty pleasure meter with this one. The ensemble
consists of a large orchestra and choir, but these elements are
restricted to bursts for moments of action or awe. An electric guitar
and its typical band associates are on hand to pound away with coolness
when necessary, including the obligatory, full hard rock crescendo of
awesomeness at the end that is believed, apparently, to make audience
members' testicles swell up with pride. But the mass of
Green
Lantern is constructed by the programmers and their library of sound
design ingredients meant to convey a somewhat scary, somewhat alien
atmosphere in a very budget-friendly manner. If you try hard enough,
perhaps you could find artistic merit in Howard's choices here; in most
cases, the vague dissonance is punctuated by electric zapping tones
worthy of a superhero with glowing balls of energy in his hands. One
would think that there was a broken click track mechanism involved as
well, because cues throughout the score are sometimes rhythmically
maintained by slight, meaningless clicking sounds. When Howard attempts
to reach out and make a pronounced impact on the film, he usually
applies derivative ideas that don't express anything fresh or
intelligent. The title theme on bold brass is a Jerry Goldsmith
throwback, reminding of
First Knight's fanfare and, while easily
inserted into several cues as a quick representation of ass-kicking
goodness, frightfully generic in its progressions.
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Aside from the thematic usage, there isn't much
cohesiveness to the narrative flow of
Green Lantern. Bursts of
symphonic activity often reference the Don Davis scores for
The
Matrix trilogy, shamelessly so in a few places. Slapping percussive
sequences from
Salt are once again pulled from the John Powell
playbook. These derivative passages are welcome, though, after the
lengthy periods of sound design at the forefront. A small bit of
salvation comes in a pair of cues in the middle of the score,
thankfully, though they amount to only a couple of minutes and won't be
worth the trouble of purchasing the entire album. In the middle of
"Welcome to Oa" (expanding upon a glimpse at the end of "Genesis of Good
and Evil"), Howard transitions to traditional fantasy mode for an easily
harmonic series of progressions with electric guitar, strings, and choir
that actually reminds of some of the most attractive parts of Toto's
Dune. Then, in "We're Going to Fly Now," a passage of
Altantis-style awe (complete with flutes!) leads to a similarly
tonal expression over the
Salt-like percussion. The incorporation
of the electric guitars and sound design in this cue is so vastly
superior to the remainder of
Green Lantern that you have to
wonder why it became orphaned. It almost stands out as clearly as
Patrick Doyle's brothers theme statements did in the first third of
Thor earlier in the year. Overall, these moments are too few and
far between in
Green Lantern to recommend the album. The product
ends with a reading of the "Green Lantern Oath" by actor Ryan Reynolds,
but the mix of the voice and a piece of Howard's score is so poorly
managed that it's intolerable, especially when the music cuts off
abruptly at the track's end. The 53-minute album is primarily a download
item, though Amazon.com's "CDr on demand" service has burned physical
copies as an alternative. If you're going to investigate that option for
a Howard score, go with the more dynamic
Salt or, if you want
something higher on the guilty pleasure meter, try
X-Men: First
Class or, better yet,
Thor. Howard rarely sleepwalks through
these major scores, but a sampling of his snoring could have been used
to augment the sound design in
Green Lantern and nobody would
have noticed the difference.
** Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download
| Bias Check: | For James Newton Howard reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating
is 3.31 (in 53 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.16
(in 58,041 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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The insert includes a list of performers but no extra information
about the score or film. As in many of Amazon.com's "CDr on demand"
products, the packaging smells incredibly foul when new.
