Buy it... if you are anxious to hear Cliff Eidelman return to strong form and extend some of the enchanting style you heard in Free Willy 3: The Rescue.

Avoid it... if the higher price of an import deters you from half an hour of good, though not outstanding, dramatic music from Eidelman.

Eidelman

Ocean Men: (Cliff Eidelman) Large-scale films and documentaries set on the ocean often present outstanding visuals and boundless opportunities for their soundtracks. Ocean Men (sometimes referred to without the space as OceanMen) is an IMAX documentary released in Germany in late 2001, produced without the knowledge of many core IMAX followers in the United States and the United Kingdom. It offers a forty-minute glimpse of the trials and triumphs of two of the world's best freedive competitors of the era. Good friends, the two men attempt and succeed in breaking the record of diving to a depth of over 500 feet in the ocean on a single breath. Despite the film's obscurity, reviews of Ocean Men were predominantly positive. Director and cinematographer Bob Talbot, who was experienced in working with underwater filming crews for other ocean-related features, hired Cliff Eidelman to compose the score. Both Eidelman and Talbot had shared associations with the Free Willy series, and Eidelman tackles Ocean Men with much of the same formula as he did Free Willy 3: The Rescue. His career in a stagnant rut, languishing in limbo for many years since his previous major scoring projects, Eidelman was snapped out of his funk by the IMAX documentary genre in the same way that it has inspired many other composers for decades. Writing music for nearly every moment in the film, Eidelman's work for Ocean Men clocks in at about 32 minutes in length. It is substantiated by a strong presence of strings that often perform a lengthy theme of epic scope. For score fans frustrated with Eidelman's recent lack of production on a large scale, Ocean Men will begin to serve, though not entirely quench, your thirst for a continuation of his dramatic sound. Unlike most IMAX scores you hear for surface level aquatic subject matter, Eidelman has tailored this score specifically for the depths. Thus, the theme is very slow in tempo and haunting in style, extended in all of its incarnations. He employs the voice of Francine Poitras once again (continuing a collaboration that proved quite successful in Free Willy 3: The Rescue) to provide the expected female vocals to represent the sea in several cues.

	Learn about supporting Filmtracks

While the score never becomes as grand in scope as you might hope (except, perhaps, during its primary statements of theme), Eidelman maintains a consistent feeling of awe for oceanic depths with the string section of the ensemble. Brass only plays an accompanying role occasionally, with woodwinds and a rumbling piano used to punctuate certain shots in the film with additional layers of drama. An acoustic guitar performs the contemporary cues of faster tempo for the two men and their preparations for diving. The overall result of the score may not be one of the same attractively dynamic level as Free Willy 3: The Rescue, but Eidelman more than compensates with subtle variations on that style. Harmonious at every turn, the music for Ocean Men is a consistently pleasant and steady listening experience. Perhaps the score's main weakness is an element of restraint that was applied to the performances of the composition. Eidelman may have restrained his thematic potential and instrumental choices due to the stark professionalism of the two divers portrayed. Therefore absent, however, is any of the creative instrumentation that often accompanies these large-screen short films. The last thing this score makes you want to do, interestingly, is go diving. But Eidelman stays conservatively beautiful for the majority of the running time, and, in doing so, reminds listeners of his own large-scale talents that had burst onto the scoring stage more than ten years earlier. The album for Ocean Men exists only on one of Warner Brothers' many European branches, out of Germany in this case. It features a very generous 32 minutes of score and a better than usual array of popular new age and rock songs, many of which with a distinctly European tilt. Some were actually used in the film, while others were included on the album because their rights were, not coincidentally, owned by Warner. Selections from score regulars Enya and Vangelis highlight the first ten song tracks of the product, and Eidelman's portion is presented uninterrupted at the end. A very strong and easily listenable album, Ocean Men was available to Americans as an import through soundtrack specialty outlets in early 2003, and copies initially sold out quickly. With modest expectations, it will be a pleasant surprise. ****   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download

Bias Check:

For Cliff Eidelman reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.29 (in 17 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.2 (in 7,740 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.