Buy it... if wholesome children's adventure music for dynamic orchestral tonality is a predictable winner for you, Joel McNeely offering several strong themes and a compelling narrative in this score.

Avoid it... if temp track emulation severely bothers you in every instance, for John Williams and Bruce Broughton are extremely (and sometimes obnoxiously) clear inspirations for nearly every facet of this work.

McNeely

Iron Will: (Joel McNeely) Based in part upon a real-life 1917 dog sled race between Winnipeg, Manitoba and Saint Paul, Minnesota, the 1994 feel-good Disney movie Iron Will tells of a young man fulfilling his father's legacy and saving his family by competing in the race. When his father is killed in a mushing accident, the man decides to raise money for his family's South Dakota farm and earn his own passage in the sport (and to college). His plight is covered by news outlets in search of an underdog story, and the film's solid supporting ensemble included appearances by Kevin Spacey, David Ogden Stiers, and Brian Cox. The wholesome Disney entertainment was praised to same extent as any of these interchangeable films at the time, and a reasonable $21 million in box office grosses greeted Iron Will just after the start of the year. The movie's technical elements were vital to its credibility, and joining the Minnesota and Montana landscapes in bringing the feel of the great outdoors to cinemas was Joel McNeely's original score. The composer had earned his first mainstream recognition after his Emmy win for "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles" in 1993, yielding two career-defining results that almost immediately guided his output over the rest of the decade. First, McNeely became known as "the next John Williams" as a result of his ability to emulate the maestro's writing style on command (a descriptor that was later transferred on to Michael Giacchino), and he was hired several times during the 1990's to provide what essentially amounts to knock-off Williams music. Secondly, he also established a strong working relationship with Disney, which hired McNeely to write music for a handful of their live action movies like Iron Will before transitioning him (with great success) to their straight-to-video animation division. Indicative of both his capability to channel Williams and supply Disney with hearty orchestral music is Iron Will, a highly entertaining and tonally ultra-accessible score for outdoors adventure. McNeely already had Squanto: A Warrior's Tale under his belt and was about to embark upon Gold Diggers: The Secret of Bear Mountain the following year, and these three scores can easily be interchangeable in many of their action and drama sequences. Each has its own specialty, however, and whereas Squanto emphasizes the ethnic element and Gold Diggers concentrates upon the smoothly dramatic lyrical side, Iron Will is an exercise in fanfares and excitement extracted from the same general mould.

	Only $9.99

You have to admire McNeely's ability to generate rousing orchestral dynamism for a project like Iron Will, but this score, more than its siblings, is also a temp track nightmare. It's nearly impossible for a learned film music collector to appreciate Iron Will casually without becoming distracted by the many references to specific scores by John Williams and Bruce Broughton, along with brass counterpoint techniques from the career of Jerry Goldsmith. While the Williams reflections have always been somewhat expected in McNeely's early years, the Broughton connection is more interesting, in part because such Disney pictures had been a Broughton specialty during that era. While you encounter Homeward Bound in vague doses throughout Iron Will, the similarities between "The Race Begins" and the concert suite of Broughton's famous Silverado theme are shamelessly unmistakable. The Williams references are literally too numerous to point to individually, for so many of McNeely's themes are inspired by the Indiana Jones scores, Born on the Fourth of July, Hook, Home Alone, and Far and Away that there is little point in attributing each one in insulting fashion. One thing that has to be said about McNeely's ability to work through a temp track, however, is his generally impressive skirting of the ideas with enough skill to suffice for the occasion. The quality of the constructs and execution in Iron Will is exemplary, proving McNeely a master arranger at the very least. In both Iron Will and Squanto, there is only one point in each respective score during which the temp track bleeds through so obviously as to be obnoxious. In the previous score, it was Hook, but in Iron Will, there is a passage at about 1:20 into "Devil's Slide" during which McNeely inexplicably reprises Williams' entire Nazi theme from the desert chase sequence of Raiders of the Lost Ark, producing an understandable chuckle in the dog-sled context. Outside of these issues, McNeely's score is rich with thematic development, well enunciated throughout its length despite each idea's derivative nature. Of particular interest is the melodramatic secondary theme expressed with convincing emotional appeal in "Gus Rescues Will." His ability to master the pacing of his final cues is especially commendable, the tempi gradually slowing until the rousing dose of Williams' Olympics material in "Crossing the Line." Overall, Iron Will is an admirably effective score despite its clear temp track issues. Its short album release is constantly engaging and features straight forward orchestral harmony that will please any listener seeking wholesome music for the outdoors. ****   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download

Bias Check:

For Joel McNeely reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.31 (in 16 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.14 (in 7,298 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.