Buy it... if you appreciate large symphonic scores that overachieve in otherwise extremely dumb circumstances within the children's genre.

Avoid it... if you don't care for B-grade video-film scores that make obvious references to famous themes from major Hollywood pictures, no matter how well they're integrated with each other.

Frank

A Kid in Aladdin's Palace: (David Michael Frank) After the 1995 kiddie comedy A Kid in King Arthur's Court made about $13 million worldwide, Lions Gate decided to make a straight-to-video sequel in 1998, moving the setting from Arthurian times to Aladdin's Arabia. Both stories involve a teenager who works as a pizza delivery boy and is magically transported to these mystical settings of the past to save the world in unlikely ways. He takes his 20th Century gadgets back with him, which in the case of the sequel includes a Swiss army knife, laptop computer, and camera. For A Kid in Aladdin's Palace, the boy assists Ali Baba and Aladdin in fending off Aladdin's evil brother, Luxor, saving Arabia while entertaining families with mirages of Burger King restaurants and incessant camel farts. In the end, the boy manages to save ancient Baghdad from itself by using his technological gizmos, funny wit, and flying carpets (the latter two of which might have been an enormous help to George W. Bush's invasion force, come to think of it), making A Kid in Aladdin's Palace a decent teenage fantasy flick. Composer J.A.C. Redford (whose work accompanied A Kid in King Arthur's Court) is replaced by David Michael Frank for the sequel. Frank was receiving the most press as any time in his career in 1997 and 1998, with both the scores to the television and IMAX films Narrow Escape and Cosmic Voyage receiving soundtrack album releases and hyped coverage. After the Citadel Records release of A Kid in Aladdin's Palace later in 1998, the composer's work would once again fade into obscurity, despite the relative strength of these three works. While Cosmic Voyage is generally considered the most attractive of the scores on album, A Kid in Aladdin's Palace is an overachieving score with plenty of listenable themes and strong references to popular desert and fantasy-related scores. Once again, the quality of Frank's music exceeds that of the film.

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A learned film music listener will hear all sorts of unintended references in A Kid in Aladdin's Palace, perhaps a result of temp track influences. A touch of Maurice Jarre's grand vista statements in Lawrence of Arabia is merged with the scope and instrumentation of David Arnold's Stargate, while chord progressions from James Horner's Star Trek scores highlight the latter half of a major theme. A variant on the descending five-note title theme from Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera is used for Luxor's activities, and some of the playful, percussion laced cues will remind (as expected) of the Alan Menken score for Aladdin. In the heroic moments, there's a touch of Bill Conti's Master of the Universe score, but that's more of an overall attitude reflection rather than a physical connection. The interesting thing about Frank's score is that it blends all of these influences so well into a thematically pleasant listening experience that he creates something new; while your brain will constantly remind you of the references, the overall package is so well integrated by Frank that you can't deny the score a high grade for effectiveness. Never does dissonance draw your attention away from the uncomplicated listenability of his music, and while some people have claimed this lack of diversity in emotional range to be a fault of Frank's writing, his scores (including this one) are extremely easy to enjoy. The loyalty to basic thematic statements leave you with several themes from the score in mind, regardless of their relative lack of exotic flair or instrumental experimentation. The weakness of the score is the size of its performance, for here Frank wrote a score seemingly too large for the orchestra to handle. The odd part of this occasionally sparse sound is the fact that the ensemble is The City of Prague Philharmonic, a group capable of far greater power. The recording quality here isn't as resounding or vibrant as it usually sounds on its Silva Screen compilation recordings, likely due to an extremely dry mix; this is definitely a score to which you'll need to add some reverb and help it reach its potential in listenability. Overall, a delightful and undemanding score. ****   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download