Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if you groove to the wild, orchestral wackiness of the most frenetic parody scores. Avoid it... if anything similar to Danny Elfman's early comedy style causes you to seek peace and quiet for self preservation. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
Monkeybone: (Anne Dudley) From the director of The Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach came yet another claymation fantasy film of lovable weirdness in the form of 2001's Monkeybone. Henry Selick once again explores the darker side of his imagination, posing that when people slip into a coma, their subconscious thoughts mingle with others suffering from the same condition. They watch the dreams of active people from the place they call Downtown, and they're delighted when a comic strip creator (Brendan Fraser) is injured in a car crash and joins them. His attempts to return to his body are complicated when his negotiations between Death and his own comic creation's star dog run afoul. For Monkeybone, the rotation of composers for this budding genre of film stopped with Anne Dudley, who had proven herself to be one of the most versatile composers of the previous decade. While many mainstream fans will recognize her name from such darkly dramatic projects as The Crying Game and American History X, the lighter side of her skills have always been overlooked. Not only winning the Academy Award for The Fully Monty in 1997 (which some might argue as inappropriate due to the songs' success in the film), Dudley had also composed the popular score for the television fantasy "The 10th Kingdom" in 2000. With all of these talents readily available, Dudley produced for Monkeybone exactly that which you would expect for the director of the film. The uncanny similarities between this score and those of Danny Elfman's early wackiness (during the days of Pee Wee and Beetlejuice) is clearly evident, and it fits this particular film well enough. It's funny to think about how this specific breed of animated film lends itself so well to a sort of "stop action" musical score or songs that also jump wildly from cue to cue with little regard for overarching flow. This score is a hybrid between the old Warner Brothers style and that of a more genre-bending creativity that Elfman helped usher into the equation. Unless you explicitly enjoy the frantic and unpredictable pace of Elfman's early comedy and children's scores, then Monkeybone could drive you nuts or, at the very least, send you in search of your stock of pain pills. Dudley takes a moderately sized orchestra and scores the film with a creative array of comedy cliches and punchy rhythms. While there do exist a few connecting constructs, the music has no discernible theme; rather, the choice of its instrumentation and rhythms carry the personality of the score in the same manner a theme could otherwise accomplish. The opening of the score greets you with a contemporary, though still awkwardly silly pop rhythm. As the setting shifts to the crazy "Downtown," the music gets the full Elfman treatment, with enough frenetic energy to make your hair stand on end in certain parts. Volume is surely not a problem with this score. Bouncing woodwinds, with swinging performances by sax and brass, give Monkeybone a strangely jazzy touch in parts, while other moments are punctuated by big band pomp with snare and cymbals crashing in every measure. As for the jazzy elements, there are various cues that are reminiscent of Elliot Goldenthal's silliest Batman Forever portions. Included as well are all of the expected orchestral hits that signify funny lines or slapstick action in the film. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of all of these prancing comedy cues, most of which are divided into short tracks, is that they remain so consistent that, after a while, your brain tunes them out if you're not overly enthusiastic about the music. While the first listen might leave you seeking peace and quiet, the second one might go surprisingly easily since the cues all run together in a mesh of comical orchestral rhythms. The one consistently unique factor is the use of sound effects in several cues. The downright humorous intent of these effects makes them unmistakable in the soundscape, sometimes distracting from the live players. If you're not the type who can sit through straight, swingy, orchestral comedy for 50 minutes, then this is definitely not your album. Its length could be considered one of its major detractions. The cues "Welcome to Downtown" and "America's Most Disturbed Comic Strip" feature the same kind of cartoonish lyrics as the Inspector Gadget theme song, although it's disappointing that Dudley never broke this score out into a full score-inspired song. The most engaging cues of Monkeybone are the few moments during which Dudley addresses the cheesy, but equally viable moments of romance and awe in the film's story. It recalls the same effect that Jamshied Sharifi's Muppets from Space had, because that score, more than any other, could spontaneously bust out with a magnificent orchestral theme with no ties to the rest of the score, used simply as a parody ploy. Dudley repeats this technique a few times in Monkeybone, specifically during the decent and ascent between worlds ("Welcome to Downtown" and "Journey to the Land of Death") and the romping "A Grand Plan." Also thrown into the mix is the oddly out-of-place tenderness of "Kitty's Plan" and "No Tears," which are the only serious breaks the score offers from the relentless locomotion of the comedy cues. These moments of the score, even though they are enticing and could bring a smile to anyone's face, will not be enough to save it for most film music collectors. Although the same comical rhythms and instrumentation of Elfman's The Nightmare Before Christmas are easy to hear, Dudley didn't (or couldn't, depending on the nature of the film) capture the same emotional or romantic edge in her endeavors for Monkeybone. With that statement in mind, Dudley's ultimately runaway comedy score will likely appeal to only those who grew up listening to and enjoying the scores of the Pee Wee variety. The composer's career in mainstream film music sadly diminished in the subsequent years, not allowing her the opportunity to explore her wide talents on as bright a stage. *** Track Listings:
Total Time: 49:08
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