Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if you are a hardcore collector of Danny Elfman's most zany and frenetic symphonic works. Avoid it... if either theremines give you nightmares, or you seek extended versions of the ambitious main titles cue. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
Mars Attacks!: (Danny Elfman) It's hard to really figure out if Tim Burton was trying to make a film better or worse than Mars Attacks!, for in either case, the picture would have succeeded better. Never receiving a glowing response from critics and blown off in the end by viewers, Burton's tribute to the schlocky B-minus films of Ed Wood and others in the 1950's sci-fi genre (as well as being inspired by a series of old Topps bubble gum cards) tried just a little too hard to actually be good... to be above its own material. And therein lies the main reason for the film's downfall: the combination of a spectacular cast, magnificent special effects, overdone gore, and a refusal by Burton to allow the film to take flight with its parody lines cause Mars Attacks! to be nothing more than a bizarre spectacle. It's intriguing, but completely defocused and lacking in genuine character development that is still necessary for even films like this to make you care. Perhaps one of the more important and overlooked aspects of Mars Attacks! is the fact that the project re-united director Burton with composer Danny Elfman, with the two of them having a personal falling-out and Elfman thus missing the opportunity to score Ed Wood in the interim. And that's a good thing, because it's hard to imagine Mars Attacks! without its similarly wacky Elfman score. Without missing a beat, Elfman seems to have read Burton's mind once again for this score, because the finished product is musically identical to the film their mutual success and failures. Elfman dove head-first into the notion of raising Bernard Herrmann's The Day The Earth Stood Still from the dead, taking the most famous and stereotypical elements of 1950's and early 1960's sci-fi music and beefing it up with all the power and diversity of a modern symphony orchestra. The resulting barrage of alien marches, theremine statements, and genre-bending sub-themes is a marvel of creativity and ingenuity, but ultimately suffers the film's fate: a total lack of focus. At best, the most positive descriptor of Elfman's Mars Attacks! score would be "fun." Many other film music collectors would call it effective as well, and no doubt it was, but what's the point of a score that mirrors its film so well that they plunge together into failure? It's not quite as far to take the leap towards the realm of "intolerable"-related descriptors, for Mars Attacks! is a self-induced headache waiting patiently on the shelves to shatter the silence in your room with enthusiasm and zeal. If you divide the score into its major parts, you have the Martian march, a definite highlight of the work and a foreshadowing of the spirit of Men in Black, along with frenetic and wildly inconsistent action music, the lovable portions of source and cutesy romance music, and the two finale tracks of victorious harmony. Spread throughout all these sections are the theremine, the quintessential representative of 1950's schlock, the high-pitched female choir, which eew's and ahh's its way into another level of fantasy schlock, an organ performing the usual menacing chord progressions, the mandatory synthetic sound effects of zipping saucers, and a perpetual presence of snare or timpani to represent the militaristic nature of the invasion. Where Mars Attacks! becomes derailed is in its establishment of a strong and enjoyable title theme (which gloriously and hilariously ends with the same finale of wailing brass as The Day The Earth Stood Still) and the lack of its necessary obvious usage throughout subsequent major cues. By the time we reach the "Martian Lounge" and "Martian Madame" cues, with Latin club rhythms and bongo drums, the identity of the score has become so fragmented that you just wish some of the spunk and movement from the opening titles would return. The "End Credits" cue is perhaps a best representative of the score's curious and ultimate failure, not sure whether to continue the parody style of the opening titles theme or to take the mood down a dark and ominous path instead. This all said, keep in mind that Mars Attacks! is a beloved score for Elfman collectors, and to be fair, a cue like "The Landing" is impressive in its bridging of choral elements from Elfman's early career (and Scrooged in particular) to the popular percussion use that foreshadows his Spider-Man work. A plus: the CD includes the two major songs from the film at its end. Fans have embraced the complete isolated score on DVD releases of this film and have widely spread that music via bootleg. But Mars Attacks! flies all over the map, leaving its main titles as the only truly memorable piece. ** Track Listings:
Total Time: 46:52
All artwork and sound clips from Mars Attacks! are Copyright © 1997, Atlantic Recording Co.. 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 3/14/97, updated 1/22/06. Review Version 4.1 - PHP (Filmtracks Publications). Copyright © 1997-2005, Christian Clemmensen. All rights reserved. |
