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| • | Newest Major Reviews: | . | • | This Week's Most Popular Reviews: | • | Best-Selling Albums: | ||
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1. Nim's Island 2. The Life Before Her Eyes 3. Horton Hears a Who! 4. Leatherheads 5. The Spiderwick Chronicles | . | . |
1. Moulin Rouge 2. Gladiator 3. POTC: Curse of the Black Pearl 4. Star Wars: A New Hope 5. Edward Scissorhands |
6. Pearl Harbor 7. Schindler's List 8. Titanic 9. Braveheart 10. Home Alone | . | . |
1. Varèse Sarabande 25th 2. The Last of the Mohicans 3. Legends of the Fall 4. Schindler's List 5. LOTR: Return of the King (Set) |
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Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... the expanded album if you are a John Williams completist and are interested enough in his works to hear the more original music left off of the first sequel album. Avoid it... the expanded album if you own the original Home Alone score and are content with it. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
Listening to Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, the average Williams fan (assuming he is familiar with the first score) will wonder what has all changed in the sequel score. Aside from a handful of cues to represent the arrival of the little dip, Kevin McCallister, in New York and his subsequent experiences in the Plaza Hotel, the material is recycled to a considerable degree by Williams. A learned fan of Williams will find the score for Home Alone 2: Lost in New York to either be an interesting study of how Williams can adapt his own music while maintaining a superior level of complexity, or be an insult to the first score. It's hard not to fall somewhere in between the two ways of thinking. Indeed, the sequel score has nearly the entire first score embedded within it. Williams tries so hard to adapt every measure of Home Alone that you sometimes hear the orchestra laboriously attempting to change the key in order to accommodate the cut and page job following. No better of an example of this is the re-use of the "Preparing the Trap" cue, which stood out with its electronic beat in the first film and will definitely get your attention this time around when Williams has to tap dance his way from a previous cue into the "Preparing the Trap" one by awkwardly shifting keys. Sadly, this cut and paste feel causes the score to lose some of its magic, and no new combination of Williams' music and Leslie Bricusse's lyrics can top the original. Because of this fascinating cut and paste job for Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, it's a fascinating entry into Williams career. He usually takes such great care to alter his sequels to stand on their own, and yet this score is such a blatant re-use of previous material. At the time of the film's release, the Williams score was released on a single CD (opposite of a song album as well), and that first score CD included, ironically, all of the note-for-note re-use sections. A limited, 2-CD expanded version from Varèse Sarabande in late 2002 presents all of Williams' efforts for the film, and these exhibit some of his more original material for the sequel. And yet, with so much of the material so familiar in the first place, one must scratch his head as to why this score (of all) received the super-duper 2-CD treatment. For the Williams fanatic, it must be said, though, that it is a treat to hear the alternative cues (especially the airport sequence) and the music from "Angels with Filthy Souls". The presentation of music on the 2-CD version is overwhelming in its completeness. But still... Why do we need to hear this? One reason would be the sound quality, which is improved over the original album; that original album was processed incorrectly from a second-generation master. Musically speaking, unless you are the most avid Williams nut, there really isn't a reason to seek the limited edition of this score. Had Williams chosen --as he usually does-- to infuse his sequels with a strong new theme to accompany the old, then maybe Home Alone 2: Lost in New York would stand on its own merits. Unfortunately, it's a rare failure by Williams to add magic and identity to his work, and could easily be skipped in all of its album forms.
Score as Heard on 2002 Varèse Sarabande 2-CD Album: *** Overall: ***
* Previously unreleased ** Contains previously unreleased material
The Fox album insert includes no extra information about the score or film. The expanded limited edition Varèse Sarabande set, though, has its usual standard of excellent, in-depth analysis of the score and film. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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