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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 Editorial Review:
For a film that was advertised as having a substantial amount of action, The Last Castle is an introspective score, exploring the patriotism within. Only in a handful of cues does a fully rousing performance of defiance break the reflective underscoring. The score for The Last Castle, while it may contain the same basic elements as all of the scores mentioned above, as well as a film for which a high drama ad campaign was launched, is one of Goldsmith's most reserved works in years. The majority of cues is opened and closed by rapid snare bursts, with minimal strings and electronic rhythms to set the necessary tone. On top of that, two or three brass motifs repeat unwaveringly thoughout every cue, very predictably and with a consistently sorrowful and frustrated mood. The short bursts of actual action music resemble very much the final Rambo score from 1989, as well as Executive Decision to a lesser extent. The timpani beating out the bass notes of Goldsmith's action cues has become a staple, one could guess, as have the deliberate spacing of the brass notes. Upon having heard all of Goldsmith's patriotic action themes for many years, it's becoming more and more evident that the meter and placement of lengthier notes in his themes are typically pretty much the same. This similarity causes the themes to have that "Goldsmithian" sound that is always enjoyable, if not superb. But it is also growing old, and Goldsmith again in The Last Castle fails to take any chances with his instrumentation. So predictable his patriotic cues have become that it is easy for a fan to get an "ah, more of the same" feeling from the music. The remarkable predictability and lack of experiementation in this score causes it to pass by very quickly on album. There's nothing really to catch your attention once you've established that The Last Castle is an extremely stereotypical score for Goldsmith. It is strong and patriotic music, as we have also come to expect from the composer, and it has sequences which sound marvelous on big speakers. But it is derivative of everything else that the composer has already accomplished in the past portrayals of rebelious patriots. Ironically, it was the terrorist attack on America in September of 2001 which caused this album to be of note. With the attack occuring in the waning days of post production, Goldsmith re-arranged the theme he had written to represent the castle and labelled the recording "September 11, 2001." Interestingly, the superb trumpeteering by Malcolm McNab, as well as a seemingly more inspiring orchestral accompaniment for this rendition of the theme, are a remarkable aspect of an otherwise solid, but average Goldsmith album. Only three minutes in length, the tribute to the victims of the attack is a superb move by Goldsmith, and one he was fortunate enough to be able to make due to some awakwardly lucky timing (had been scoring Along Came a Spider at the time instead, such a tribute would have been more difficult to manage). The album unfortunately contains two bluesy songs, and although they fit the prison mood quite well, the final one busts up the mood of the attack tribute significantly. The tribute theme should have been, without a doubt, the final track on the album. On the whole, however, it's a memorial album. While the merit of Goldsmith's music remains strong, those fans who have heard his work for many decades will now hear very little that doesn't reflect or repeat the previous, patriotic efforts in his career. ***
Insert notes contain an interesting recollection of the director (Rod Lurie) about the process of obtaining Goldsmith's services, and his vaulted opinion of the maestro. He finishes by describing his reaction to the title theme: "Twenty-four notes. All in C minor. Twenty-four notes that have haunted me ever since. Twenty-four notes that left me in tears. Twenty-four notes that are a gift to soldiers; to sailors; to Americans. Twenty-four notes that, I think, will help to cement Jerry Goldsmith as the maestro of our time." | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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