Buy it... on the expanded promotional or bootlegged album only if you do not own the commercial product and consider yourself a die-hard Horner collector.

Avoid it... on the commercial album if only the twenty minutes of true highlights from the score on that product can't compensate for the rest of the album's irritating contents.

Horner

How the Grinch Stole Christmas: (James Horner) With so many audiences familiar with the 22-minute cartoon narrated by Boris Karloff that has appeared for two generations on network television each Christmas, director Ron Howard took it upon himself to expand upon that faithful adaptation of the Dr. Seuss book with his own live action version of 90 minutes. Howard's 2000 film, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, opens with an hour of background material about the snowflake town of Whoville and its Grinch before launching into the more familiar part of the story in its final third. With these additional revelations about the past of the Grinch, audiences get a better idea as to why he would be motivated to sneak down off his mountain of garbage and steal all the Christmas presents and decorations on the eve of the holiday. One of the main attractions of the film was the title performance by Jim Carrey, which was strangely wasted by the amount of makeup placed on him to mirror the drawn version of the character. The film wasn't received well, especially by critics, with the harsh colors and intentionally blurry photography producing a feel that dissatisfies the same viewers who would eventually be turned off by The Polar Express. The marketing blitz surrounding the film informed weary adults that the big new version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas was largely a marketing ploy, and one significant part of that ploy was the film's soundtrack. Songs from the old cartoon were interpolated into the film, as were a few new orchestral and ensemble cast pieces. But with these songs came 'N Sync and Faith Hill, among others, eventually yielding an extremely disjointed soundtrack album representing an odd mix of cast songs, rock songs, dialogue, and orchestral underscore. Along for the journey once again with Ron Howard was composer James Horner, who contributed to both the song integration in How the Grinch Stole Christmas as well as the film's hour (roughly) of original score. While Horner is no stranger to the production of large-scale children's scores for fluffy films, this endeavor would compete with the film's larger commercialistic intentions and lose the battle.

As for the merits of that score, Horner was placed into the awkward position of attempting to balance the comedy elements of parody levels with the serious drama and character salvation awaiting audiences at the end of the picture. John Williams had proven with Home Alone and Hook that such a balance can be struck, and Danny Elfman had skirted this territory with a few of his early, popular scores. But Horner, for all his experience in the children's genre, had rarely tackled a holiday score specifically. He would address Whoville with the appropriate set of percussion that you'd expect for the holidays, but on the whole, the score doesn't ooze with holiday spirit. Instead, you hear an interesting combination of the dramatic sensibilities that Horner had employed countless times in the past (for both the children's genre and more serious adult topics) and his attempts to enter the rhythmically and instrumentally wacky world of Elfman and Rachel Portman. As such, the score is really divided much like the film; the first 40 minutes of flashbacks into the past of the Grinch come with the usual parody techniques that often approach the bizarre. Source ensemble songs imitate fart and theremin sounds and present delirious solos for orchestral players who likely don't have as much fun recording your everyday film scores. The integration of Vangelis' Chariots of Fire into "Cheermeister Vote" is representative of a creative avenue of thought rare for Horner by 2000. Most of this comedy material, often flirting with hints of danger that inevitably include Horner's famous four-note "danger motif," has been heard throughout his career, though it should be noted that the ensemble performance in How the Grinch Stole Christmas is quite robust. Even in the adaptation of Vangelis' theme for the aforementioned parody track, the performance is impressively deep. The resonating performances especially aid the later tracks. Horner's primary two themes for the film, the first of which is the simplistic title theme adapted into the cast and Faith Hill songs, receive significant attention in the latter half of the score. Even Horner's more obnoxious "mischief" theme for the Grinch matures to impressive ends in the final cues.

As the film transitions to the story seen in both the book and the original cartoon, Horner kicks his score into high gear. The percussive creativity of "The Big Heist," accompanied by brilliant employment of brass accents, is a highlight of the mischief theme. Thereafter, the score turns completely serious, offering a dramatic sensitivity consistent with Bicentennial Man, especially with the employment of a light choir that is so fluid as to almost sound synthetic. Its humming in "A Change of Heart" will remind of the haunting, sorrowful theme from Casper. A crescendo of synthetic backing for this theme in the same cue would preview some of the spiritual depth of The New World. In this and "The Sleigh of Presents," Horner provides significant beauty and rewards listeners who may have lost patience with the wacky side of the score. The last twenty minutes truly compensate for forty minutes of mediocre material from Horner for the flashback portion of the film, as well as the rather lackluster song variants of the theme. Luckily, despite the ills of the commercial album for How the Grinch Stole Christmas, the product does contain the fifteen or so best minutes of Horner's score material. Otherwise, however, that Interscope album truly was a nightmare before Christmas in 2000. It was a Horner fan's worst fear, with only thirty minutes of score designated for the product. Ten of those minutes exist under the editing of vocals and dialogue by cast members. The remaining twenty minutes of score is mixed so that there is occasional interference in the treble when the orchestra performs in full. And then, to lighten things up, Interscope sprinkled six or so excerpts of uninteresting movie dialogue throughout the rest of the album, nestling them in between attempts to appeal to the mass of thirteen-year-old Dr. Seuss fans with some rap, alternative, pop, and funk songs, as well as the obligatory, unshaven sex objects, 'N Sync. Finally, the late stages of production of the album were marked with unintelligible packaging, including the lack of track numbers or times. So, in short, the die-hard Horner fan was provided with a completely futile and useless product. Horner's contribution to this album is easily consumed by the other elements of the product.

	Commercial Album: Only $11.99

In the end, the Interscope Records album is very much like Jim Carrey's personality; never defining itself with clear direction. Since Interscope does not produce score albums (they publish rock, R&B, pop, rap, funk, gospel, and alternative music), it's no surprise that they lost touch with Horner's effort in their attempts to boost the marketability of the product. Horner fans didn't have much time to complain, however, because How the Grinch Stole Christmas represented one of the quickest releases of a promotional score that the community has ever seen, with bootlegs of that leaked material appearing on the secondary market within only two weeks of Interscope's album release. Even Apollo 13, the other commonly questioned commercial product for Horner, took several months for Universal to crank out the score-only promo. It's not clear if the expanded album was truly a promotional effort put forth by Horner and/or the studio after witnessing the botched commercial album, or if it was born as just another black market bootleg. The answer doesn't matter, for it serves as testimony to the failure of that first album. In this case, however, more of this score doesn't automatically make it better. The material on the commercial album is mostly centered around the final thirty minutes of the film (the traditional part of the story), and these compositions are Horner's best for How the Grinch Stole Christmas. When you hear the shorter, parody-style of cues for the earlier portions of the film, you get the impression that the score really was one of Horner's weakest efforts in a number of years. It fails to stir up any genuine feelings of Christmas, and never does it establish a strong musical motif (outside of the mischief motif) for the Dr. Seuss character. The comical edge of the score does not allow it to flow as smoothly as Horner typically prefers, and the slapstick elements of the orchestra's performance make the album equally unpredictable and difficult to enjoy. The expanded album does, though, allow some of Horner's more creative moments to shine. The integration of Chariots of Fire into "Cheermeister Vote" (only heard on this album) is one of its highlights. Cues that were hidden behind dialogue on the commercial album are left with only the music here. But these benefits together cannot salvage a Horner score that has its flaws, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas is among the weakest of the commonly bootlegged scores by the composer.   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download

Score as Written for Film: ***
Score as Heard on Commercial Album: *
Score as Heard on Promotional Album: ***
Overall: ***

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.