Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... only if you are prepared to hear James Horner introduce several strong action ideas and themes without providing any satisfying cohesion whatsoever. Avoid it... if you prefer the days of Horner's children's scores when there was magic in the strings and beauty in the orchestral rhythms, even in the action sequences. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
Jumanji: (James Horner) In an attempt to ride the wave of super-popular animal special effects that was caused initially by Jurassic Park, director Joe Johnston brings the board game described in Chris Van Allsburg's children's book to life. The premise of the Jumanji story involves a supernatural game that brings its jungle world to life and puts the actual players in jeopardy of being maimed, or perhaps worse yet, caught in the spell of the game forever. Johnston had brought a child's twist of special effects perspective to Honey, I Shrunk the Kids several years earlier, and unfortunately, for Jumanji, the technology had begun to overwhelm the storyline by 1995. The massive failure of Jumanji in the theatres during the Christmas season of that year was due in part to the fact that critics failed to see the purpose in establishing the entire premise of a film simply for the sake of special effects, and due partly to the fact that the film deserved far more than a PG rating since it proved capable at terrifying children in the audience rather than entertaining them. For composer James Horner, who had scored Honey, I Shrunk the Kids for Johnston, Jumanji would come at the end of a 1994-1995 season that would reveal the composer's best collective work in his career, and you couldn't blame Horner fanatics for having extremely high hopes for Jumanji. Given the extent to which the film's special effects were advertised in the news, how could Horner screw this one up? Well, he did, and it's difficult to pinpoint exactly why. The pace of the film's script is one that favors one scene of mayhem after another (as each player makes a move), so Horner is left jumping through several hoops without the score or film being able to provide any cohesive sense of completion. Then again, the ability to raise hell in individual scenes of chaos and hysteria was accomplished by Horner with strong results in We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story. In Jumanji, however, there is no direction to the music whatsoever. Along with Balto the same year, Jumanji would mark the end of Horner's era of common association with large-scale children's pictures. A problem is evident in Jumanji, however, in the form of Horner's lost elements of charm and magic that were nearly always present in his superior children's works. Some of it still existed in Balto, but by the time Jumanji rolled around, the enticing rhythms, the sensitivity of themes, and everything 'cute' that had defined Horner's involvement in the genre had been replaced by a mutation of those elements with the grown-up action sensibilities of scores like Apollo 13 and Clear and Present Danger. There is more in common in the action writing of Jumanji with Courage Under Fire than there is with the countless children's scores that Horner penned in the previous decade. Two sadly underdeveloped themes are introduced in Jumanji, one for the innocence of the Alan Parrish character caught in the game (Robin Williams), and one strictly for the action pieces that strangely resembles one of Gabriel Yared's Troy themes note-for-note. An inspired motif for "The Hunter" is a standout cue, but Horner strays into directionless action material for the mass of the rest of the score. Cues of intentional orchestral chaos, such as "Monkey Mayhem" are more irritating than their cartoonish intent is worth, and the fully orchestral moments of dread rely far too heavily on stock rumblings of deep percussion. Several decent moments exist in the climactic "Jumanji" cue, including some of Horner's better inclusion of the shakuhachi flute for wailing accents over pulsating brass (as in The Mask of Zorro later), but even this cue builds to a dissonant climax worthy of Vibes. After a sensitive flute statement of the Parrish theme in the end titles (reminiscent of The Spitfire Grill and An American Tail), Horner again throws a confusing addition to the mix, adapting some of his Native American chanting from Thunderheart in the final moments. It's easy to get frustrated by the score for Jumanji, because there was so much potential for great action material to rival the excitement of Willow and other Horner classics, and despite toying with several strong ideas in Jumanji, Horner completely fails to do what his great scores of 1995 all did: tie all those ideas into one great (or even listenable) package. ** Track Listings:
Total Time: 51:07
All artwork and sound clips from Jumanji are Copyright © 1995, Epic Soundtrax. 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 9/24/96, updated 5/9/05. Review Version 4.1 - PHP (Filmtracks Publications). Copyright © 1996-2005, Christian Clemmensen. All rights reserved. |
