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Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if you don't mind hearing orchestras wielded like blunt instruments for exotic and noisy action romps. Avoid it... if you expect either the sophistication or prevailing personality in style that Jerry Goldsmith's better adventure scores exhibit. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
If you're the kind of devoted film music collector who enjoys Goldsmith's exotic orchestral bombast in its purest sense, then the aimless personality of The Mummy won't bother you. The score was Goldsmith's most densely ambitious "wall of sound" entry of the era, blatantly pulling at the bloated charisma of the story. It's difficult to determine if Goldsmith approached The Mummy with absolutely serious intent, for his music certainly makes it seem as though that were the case. But given that the production elements of the film were extreme to the point of parody makes one wonder if Goldsmith didn't let rip with the tone of this score due to some "tongue in cheek" playfulness. Several of the rhythms in The Mummy are directly related to the militaristic parody movements in Small Soldiers, which could indicate either a nod to the comical elements of The Mummy or perhaps simply the composer's preferred style of ruckus at the time. Much of the style of Goldsmith's rambling, percussive rhythms in The Mummy would be reprised with greater coherence in The 13th Warrior. The sheer density of The Mummy is both its major attraction and its demise. The many thematic ideas in the score are often lost in the shuffle, though it should be noted that each of the four individual themes is above average compared to the composer's tendency in the following years to write some clunkers. While all of the four ideas receive significant treatment throughout the score, none of them really establishes itself as the primary identity of the film. The closest candidate to taking this title is the ancient Egypt theme, alternately representing the living soul of Imhotep and the curse placed upon him at the outset of the film. This theme is rich with both straight-forward boldness and a few twists of stereotypical Middle-Eastern chord progressions. Its broad performance at the very outset of the film is its most prominent, though it ranges in style from solo woodwind in "Giza Port" to frantic hits and swirls of the ensemble in the opening moments of "The Sand Volcano." The sinister side of Imhotep's resurrection and curses is provided with another theme, foreshadowed briefly on low woodwind over choir at the end of "Imhotep" and debuting in full on brass in the latter half of "The Sarcophagus." Fuller performances of this idea are heard as the havoc is really being sent forth in "My Favorite Plague" and "Crowd Control." A heroic theme for the film, alternately a straight-laced action motif, is ripped directly from Small Soldiers and used during the more upbeat moments of adventure in the film. Goldsmith only allows this theme to truly flourish in "The Sand Volcano," prominently marching its way at about 2:20 into that cue. The fourth and final theme in The Mummy is the obvious love theme, spanning both the relationship between Imhotep and the mistress as well as the one between 1920's treasure seekers. The first hints of this string theme are offered in the ancient Egypt scene in "Imhotep," though it is more frequently referenced as the score progresses. A fleeting performance in "Giza Port" and several prevalent statements in the latter half of "Camel Race" cannot compete with the majesty of the theme's performances in the last minutes of "The Sand Volcano," when the choir elegantly joins in. In between all of these thematic references is an extremely healthy dose of Goldsmith's most rowdy action material. As mentioned before, these ideas owe heavily to Small Soldiers and would be explored with greater success by Goldsmith in his replacement score for The 13th Warrior. With percussive and synthetic instrumentation appropriate for the region, many have compared parts of The Mummy to The Wind and the Lion, which contains some of Goldsmith's most memorable action material for the region. Instrumentally, The Mummy sufficiently provides the setting with an exotic tilt, and the elements used here for that effect are identical to those heard again in The 13th Warrior. Parts of the two scores, in fact, could be interchanged and few causal fans would notice the difference. There is irony in the fact that the end credits music for The Mummy consisted of pieces from the rest of the score manually edited together into a suite. The major difference between The Mummy and its two direct cousins, Small Soldiers and The 13th Warrior, is that The Mummy struggles to maintain a personality. The former score's exuberant sense of humor and the latter score's stark sense of antiquity are the kinds of defining characteristics that The Mummy lacks. You can't really rely upon any of the four major themes, for Goldsmith doesn't enunciate them clearly enough for an average movie-goer to grasp. You also can't really point to any single instrumental or vocal element as the definition of the score (the opposite of this would be The Ghost and the Darkness, which exudes a distinct style in nearly its entire length). The choir in The Mummy is used sparingly, which is a nice alternative in some ways to the outward explosiveness of the voices in The 13th Warrior, but outside of the final moments of "The Sand Volcano," the choir's role doesn't add much to help direct the score. Electronics are sparsely employed, mostly to assist with percussive rhythms. Overall, within the subset of Goldsmith's action material of this era, The Mummy is extraordinary in its forceful stance but surprisingly anonymous in its character. Perhaps the sheer volume of the score, with its constant waves of rhythmically powerful action cues clobbering you at every turn, is actually its defining personality trait. If this is true, then the organization of the score's rhythmic and thematic ideas are betrayed by their heavy-handed rendering. Still, the score, which exhibits the same remarkably resounding sound quality as Goldsmith's others in 1998 and 1999 (a perfect balance of detail and reverb), is extremely popular with the composer's collectors, which often hail it as among his best action ventures ever. That enthusiasm has always been somewhat curious, but those fans were given the treat of an isolated score on the DVD release of the film. Bootlegs ensued, and anyone unsatisfied with the hour of music on the Decca album has long since sought those unofficial, expanded issues. While interesting and noisy, The Mummy really doesn't deserve that much attention, however. It's fun, but adrift. ***
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