Buy it... if you'd be enticed by a loyal, yet spectacular reinterpretation of Horner's original The Mask of Zorro score.

Avoid it... if the only thing worse than Horner repetition for you is to hear it over wild acoustic guitars, castanets, shakuhachi flute, and foot tapping.

Horner

The Legend of Zorro: (James Horner) When the legend of Zorro first made its appearance on the modern big screens, it swashed and buckled its way above and beyond even the old Tyrone Power adaptation of the California hero. Catching many viewers by surprise, The Mask of Zorro introduced Catherine Zeta-Jones to the masses, re-launched Antonio Banderas' career, revived interest in the character, and even provided a unique entry in the books of then red-hot composer James Horner. Back to direct the sequel is Martin Campbell, and with Banderas, Zeta-Jones, Horner, and other crew returning for another adventure, The Legend of Zorro rode into theatres with high expectations. A poor script has proven to be a foe that even Zorro cannot defeat, and amid stale reviews and cries of rehash, the sequel hasn't resurrected the same lofty appeal as the original. For James Horner, The Mask of Zorro was a pivotal entry in his career, for it came on the heels of Titanic, a score that forever polarized most of the remaining film music collectors who had not already labeled Horner as genius or hack. Without a doubt, The Mask of Zorro gave Horner the opportunity to carry all of his familiar instrumentation into a genre that has been sadly neglected by Hollywood blockbusters in the modern era: historic Hispanic adventure. With wild acoustic guitars, castanets, and foot tapping, Horner had created a score that not only differed from the spirit and sound of anything he had produced in his career, but was also unique in the scope of all modern Hollywood composing. While The Legend of Zorro has much inspiration taken from the original success, a more interesting trend that Horner is showing in late 2005 reveals that his music for Flightplan might actually have just as much of an effect on The Legend of Zorro.

A casual listener might parse through the music for The Legend of Zorro and simply qualify it with more of the "rehash" labels applied to the film itself. But Horner's score for Flightplan displayed an exemplary level of density that the composer has carried over to The Legend of Zorro, and therein lies the primary difference between the two Zorro scores. The original was a plain and simple action score laced with the accents of Hispanic instrumentation, rhythms, and stereotypical theme progressions for Mexico. With convincing fashion, The Legend of Zorro is a far more complex variation on the same basic structure, resulting in a more frenetic work with interesting interpretations of Horner's previous themes for the characters. He doesn't really make an attempt to provide new thematic representation for the fresh villain of the film, or even for the newly annexed state of California itself, but instead he draws his inspiration on countless variations on the previous themes. This statement alone will be the "live or die" qualifier for you regarding The Legend of Zorro; quite simply, if you enjoyed the first score, then The Legend of Zorro is going to be any extremely raucous and invigorating listening experience in and outside of the film. There are countless performances of the Zorro theme itself (heard over the titles), the love theme (translated into the song in the first film), and the horseback action theme. Not only do you receive generous treatment of all these themes (their eruptions and crescendos highlight every single cue here), but Horner heightens the enjoyment by cranking up the density of each performance with brilliant harmony in counterpoint. Because the underlying chord progressions of the Zorro and love themes are very similar, Horner presents both simultaneously several times, often with stunning results. The culmination of this technique is heard between minutes 3:00 and 5:00 in the lengthy climax cue, "The Train," in which Horner not only maintains both themes simultaneously for an extended time, but he does so as he increases the rate of the accompanying snare to represent the puffing of the train in the film.

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Even if the loyal, yet far more highly developed interpretations of these themes don't grab your attention, then the overwhelming vibrance of the instrumentation and performance definitely will. The increase in density also applies to the extremely active acoustic guitars, castanets, and foot tapping sound effects throughout the entire score. Every minute of this score has the Latin flavour inserted with remarkable ease and energy; the wild guitars especially never seem to become tiresome, nor does Horner's snapping rhythms under trumpet serenades or the occasional blasts of a distant shakuhachi flute. And the only reason he seems to have been able to pull this off is because every section of the orchestra is seemingly doing something interesting in every major piece, adding a dimension of enthusiasm that elevates The Legend of Zorro above even the original. Horner throws in some exotic spices along the ride beyond even that, featuring the brass-slurring effect from Jerry Goldsmith's The Shadow in "The Cortez Ranch," a whining violin for comedy in "Jailbreak," and a minute or so of rapid brass blasts and string pulsation at the end of "The Train" that will make you swear that John Williams' Revenge of the Sith score was playing. When you put all of this together with a crisp recording quality and the loyal placement of themes from the first film, The Legend of Zorro is one of the most satisfying sequel scores to come around in a long time. Like the original, the strong critics of Horner will have difficulty pointing to the stereotypes of Horner's other works; there is no four-note motif for "evil" and no piano crashing for "suspense." He does, however, interpret his usual finale chord progression at the end of the score, with the rising notes famous in the finales of Star Trek and The Rocketeer now whipped into a frenzy of guitars and tapping. True, it's a Hornerism, but like everything in The Legend of Zorro, he's had a whole lot of fun rearranging everything into a more complicated, but still harmonious package. Given the rhythmic appeal of the genre and the quality of Horner's original composition, The Legend of Zorro not only surpasses The Mask of Zorro, but is Horner's most impressive and downright infectious score since that original. Crank up the volume on this one! *****   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download

Bias Check:

For James Horner reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.13 (in 98 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.25 (in 184,725 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.