Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if you consider yourself an avid collector of every variation on the superhero genre of music, because David Newman provides an adequately beefy and occasionally exciting entry despite many underwhelming passages. Avoid it... if you expect the long and rather oddly developed thematic structures of The Phantom to remain in your memory, for the ideas, along with a passive orchestral performance, fail to distinguish the score in a crowded field of competition. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
The Phantom: (David Newman) After the monumental success of the original Batman adaptation to film in 1989, there was a short-lived push to bring a second tier of radio and comic action icons from the 1930's to the big screen, highlighted by the popular failure of 1994's The Shadow. Carrying a less interesting cast and a plot with an equal number of cliches, director Simon Wincer's The Phantom bombed to an even greater extent, pushed aside by heavyweight summer releases of 1996 such as Independence Day and Twister. An explicitly campy demeanor to the script, performances, and even the costumes of The Phantom attempted to infuse humor into a concept already brimming with rather amusing logical fallacies (beginning with the purple outfit of the hero). Playful stabs at the Indiana Jones franchise and seeming indecision about the level of mysticism caused this jungle-born fantasy topic to lose its luster, and a rather tepid love story left largely cut from the film didn't help. The fad of adapting comic book legends may gave died off for a while thereafter (the resurrection of the studios' attempts with 2000's X-Men was a predictable reboot of the same general idea), but the film scores of that genre remain as curiosities at the very least. The music for these fantasy concepts and their conceptual manipulation of time allowed for large scale experimentation on the part of the composers assigned to give them a lasting identity, opening the doors for them to weave a diverse fabric of thematic and unconventional instrumentation into rousing scores, both in the respective films and on their albums. Even relative newcomers to film music who are vaguely familiar with the style of composition of David Newman know that the son of the infamous Alfred Newman is capable of writing long and engagingly melodic themes for dramatic movies. His ability to highlight a score with a spontaneous cue of orchestral marvel has never gone unnoticed. His score for Hoffa has arguably the most memorable and consistently strong thematic material of his career, and even a project as silly as 2000's Bowfinger offers a short, but brilliant orchestral outburst for the film's outlandish ending. Most collectors of David Newman's work, which has been restrained mostly to dumb comedy through the years (he collaborated with Wincer on the wretched Operation Dumbo Drop a year before this), will be interested in knowing if The Phantom has any of the memorable traits of his work for Galaxy Quest not long after. Overall, the strength of the writing is the same, but the development of ideas in The Phantom remains somewhat inferior by comparison, despite some beefier orchestrations. While Jerry Goldsmith's The Shadow is still a cult favorite many years later, Newman's The Phantom sadly failed to capture the same interest in the film score community. As a novelty object, the score is still debated in the fantasy circles, but something about Newman's work for the film lacks the exuberant personality and thematic distinction to elevate it to truly memorable status. Movies of this genre need, more than perhaps those in any other, a strong, easily-identifiable theme. Whether they're corny, over-the-top, or deadly serious, fantasy films with a shadowy heroic villain depend heavily upon a simple and recognizable theme (or even less complicated motif) to herald the entrance and exit of the title character. Subsequently, a style of exciting orchestral music is required to push the fantasy element and exaggerate any difference in setting and the time of the story. On this second task, Newman succeeds above and beyond the call of duty, providing a substantial amount of impressively large orchestral music for The Phantom. His incorporation of James Horner's usual exotic flutes, as a representation of the remote island where the original phantom was marooned, is an excellent choice. Also included for dramatic effect is a beefy male chorus that figures strongly in the first and last cues of the score (despite the voices' somewhat stale unified performances). Thumping and tingling electronic sounds seek to modernize the sound in Goldsmith fashion but with only moderate success. Newman does make a few attempts to develop electronic distortions in the mix, but without much memorable effect. A more dramatic presence of those pre-recorded elements in the composition and mix probably would have helped distinguish The Phantom as a more enjoyable piece of music overall, because the orchestra itself is the most lacking element in the equation. The performances of The Phantom by the London Metropolitan Orchestra often lag in their enthusiasm and are poorly orchestrated. Their mixing is particularly flat, and it is this lack of lofty sound that causes the superhero score to unforgivingly slip by without notice or with lacking personality in several sections. The most unique and interesting moment of the score is Newman's use of soft "phantom" chants at the beginning of the title cue. These were abandoned for the remainder of the score, though even with those choral elements, Newman's orchestra didn't release enough flighty energy to substantiate the composition on paper. Also of concern is Newman's handling of the themes in The Phantom. Rather than establish a strong set of primary and secondary ideas for the lead character and his exploits, Newman instead wrote one very long-lined theme for the titular hero and pulls sections from that idea for individual applications thereafter. The usage basically functions, and the work as a whole is quite satisfying in its constant switching between these fragments. But, as a result, each of these interesting motifs fails to be explored as much as desired, especially in the score's highlighted mystery portions in which dark fantasy is reflected in Newman's most melodramatic expressions ("Conversation With Dad/Sengh Symbol"). A love theme, heard beautifully in "Must Be the Humidity" and "Escaping the Island," is underdeveloped, and the identity for the villain, Drax, is really nothing more than a cyclical rhythmic figure of mainly synthetic origins that accomplishes little. Nevertheless, the score, even with its occasional blasts of unbearable noise, contains several strong moments of orchestral filler material, led by the second half of its final cue. Pieces of it were used quite often in trailers for subsequent films. On album, the original Milan CD of 46 minutes lacked most of the second half of the score. In 2012, La-La Land Records provided 76 minutes in a much better rounded presentation, illuminating many of the score's stronger attributes. The mix on this product is also improved, though expect the xylophones to be obnoxiously prominent at times. For any fan of the fantasy character genre, The Phantom is a decent entry and its 2012 album is very entertaining in parts, but mainstream listeners are more likely to pass it over for cult favorites like The Shadow or modern classics such as Danny Elfman's Batman. Average work in this genre just isn't good enough.
Music as Heard on the 1996 Milan Album: *** Music as Heard on the 2012 La-La Land Album: **** Overall: *** Track Listings (1996 Milan Album):
Total Time: 46:23
(Track lengths not listed on CD or cover) Track Listings (2012 La-La Land Album):
Total Time: 76:52
* previously unreleased ** contains previously unreleased material *** co-composed with Randy Miller All artwork and sound clips from The Phantom are Copyright © 1996, 2012, Milan Entertainment, La-La Land Records. 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 9/24/96, updated 8/26/12. Review Version 4.1 - PHP (Filmtracks Publications). Copyright © 1996-2013, Christian Clemmensen. All rights reserved. |
1996 Milan