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1. Nim's Island 2. The Life Before Her Eyes 3. Horton Hears a Who! 4. Leatherheads 5. The Spiderwick Chronicles | . | . |
1. Moulin Rouge 2. Gladiator 3. POTC: Curse of the Black Pearl 4. Star Wars: A New Hope 5. Edward Scissorhands |
6. Pearl Harbor 7. Schindler's List 8. Titanic 9. Braveheart 10. Home Alone | . | . |
1. Varèse Sarabande 25th 2. The Last of the Mohicans 3. Legends of the Fall 4. Schindler's List 5. LOTR: Return of the King (Set) |
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Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... only if you accepted The Curse of the Black Pearl in the swashbuckling genre and are ready for a slightly more orchestral and jaunty version of the same for the sequel. Avoid it... if more regurgitation from The Rock and The Peacemaker is the last thing you need to hear alongside your pirate ships and swordfighting. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
Those questions will wait for the time being, for the merits of the score for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest will help determine their answers. Zimmer obviously had more time for this sequel score, though that didn't stop him from assembling at least seven ghostwriters to aide him once again in his efforts (whether or not they actually qualify as "ghostwriters" is another issue that will wait until later in the review). Whether you like the Media Ventures style of music for this genre or not, you will notice that Dead Man's Chest has some significant differences in style and structure from The Curse of the Black Pearl. Zimmer expands the orchestral palette a little farther, uses a variety of rhythmic tools, and seems to have a more intelligent grasp of thematic integration. In fact, he even manages to infuse a little more genuine spirit of character into the score, whereas the Badelt-credited effort for the original prefers to bludgeon you without trying to make any such finer points. Zimmer spends significant time establishing new themes for the film's primary characters, including one for Jack Sparrow in the opening cut on the album. Zimmer's love for the waltz influences the sprightly cello theme for this piece, easily the most flamboyant of either score. A fresh theme for Davy Jones is provided on music box a few cues later. Interestingly, both performances climax into nearly stereotypical action levels for Zimmer, with echoes of Crimson Tide and The Rock abounding in their middle sections, negating the intrigue created by each themes' more instrumentally careful introductions. The Davy Jones theme breaks into an extremely brutal and deliberate rhythm complete with driving organ, the instrument that defines much of Dead Man's Chest. The third primary new thematic idea in the score is that of the Kraken, the underwater menace that has inspired Zimmer take his typically heavy basslines even lower in range. Perhaps suggested by Captain Nemo and a historical tendency for dangerous creatures of the deep to be represented by pipe organ, the use of the shadowy organ sound for the Kraken's theme is Zimmer's most intelligent move in the score, though even this theme, by its climax, isn't immune to the usual treatment of pounding synthetic orchestra hits and broad electric guitar mashings. The album opens with the character action pieces that introduce these three themes. Thereafter, the score continues to jump in style wildly, which is a welcome move after the nonstop action of the first score on album, though for Dead Man's Chest, the lack of consistency creates its own problems. In "I've Got My Eye on You," Zimmer returns to the deep choral suspense of The Peacemaker, accompanied by deep, churning electronics, before the one heroic performance of the first film's title theme on this album. Enhanced percussion and singing sections spur the natives in "Dinner is Served," one of Zimmer's most bizarre career cues, though one with necessary comedy. After a heavy dose of brash percussion, wailing female voice, and rough throat singing, the comedy comes in the form of one of Zimmer's favorite, straight-laced classical waltzes. Maybe the most interesting cue on album is "Tia Dalma," which, after a stereotypical opening with the "Black Pearl" theme from the first film, tones back the bass far enough to allow other elements of the performance to shine, including female vocals, violin plucking, the music box, and various light percussive effects. The "Turtle" track is the kind of boisterous accordion and fiddle source cue that contributes to stylistic diversity in the score, but really only serves to break up the album's effectiveness. The battles then break out with regularity, with "A Family Affair" offering both the "Black Pearl" and Davy Jones themes in heavy, drum-thumping exhibitions over choir and typical Zimmer string layers and bass enhancements (before the lament of a solo cello takes the latter theme back to conversational levels). The lengthy "Wheel of Fortune" cue is a cut-and-paste piece of action music from the first score and snippets of three primary themes from the current score presented in succession without much integration. After reminders of the Davy Jones and Kraken themes, some of Sparrow's thematic ideas from the first film are reprised. The following "You Look Good, Jack" cue is a largely uninteresting atmospheric cue for string and synthesizer before exploding into an electric guitar action outburst of significant irritation at the end. Zimmer's score ends with the derivative "Hello Beastie," a cue with heavy influences in choir from The Peacemaker as it hints at the first film's theme before oddly inserting some straight brass-layered material from the closing of The Da Vinci Code. The score almost dies with a whimper before a final burst of Sparrow's theme from the first score on cello. Interrupting the flow of the album with even greater intensity is a lengthy trance remix of "He's a Pirate" from the first score, which oddly maintains a refreshing sound compared to the significantly predictable score that had gone before. It's not entirely listenable in and of itself, but compared to Zimmer's inability to break out of his stubborn mold and write something truly original for the score, the trance beat is at least a splash of cold water in the face. You can hear what Zimmer was trying to accomplish with Dead Man's Chest; he seems to have attempted better character identification (as made necessary by the film's exploration of them) and added more stylistic spark through his rhythmic deviation. On a basic level, he has succeeded, and the result is a score that ironically jumps around in style too often to be an easily consistent listening experience. Despite his efforts, though, Dead Man's Chest fails on two entirely separate levels, whether you like this kind of music for the genre or not. First, Bruckheimer and Zimmer's attempt to put swashbuckling music on steroids for the modern generation still doesn't work if you subscribe to classical notions of music for the high seas. In short, if you found the score for The Curse of the Black Pearl obnoxious in the picture, then you'll have to do your best to try to ignore it in Dead Man's Chest. Second, even if you can accept hearing music from The Rock and The Peacemaker in your Pirates of the Caribbean films, this music just isn't that good on its own merits. It sounded great when it first debuted in full in Crimson Tide... it was fresh and entertaining. But it's simply overused now, not only by Zimmer, but by all of his associates in their spin-off scores. It doesn't matter if this music is for a modern military flick or a science fiction affair, it has become an all-too-predictable extension of Zimmer's increasingly one-dimensional bluckbuster style. On a technical level, the number of Zimmer's self-ripoff mechanisms is starting to rival that of James Horner, and Zimmer had a smaller palette of sounds to work with (at least in this action genre) from the start. There's plenty of evidence in Dead Man's Chest to back up both the aforementioned failures described in this paragraph, and in all fairness to Zimmer, they should be explained. For those of you who can't dig this Pirates of the Caribbean music as appropriate for the genre, there's good reason for your concern. Supporters of the modern sound will call you stubborn or pre-programmed, but you've got history on your side. There's a reason why the original Korngold vision of swashbuckling music has endured so long. It's been employed by maestros since then, often with great effect... Why? Because it simply works. There are intangibles about the soaring effect of orchestral sailing music that stir the imagination like none other. If you look at the definition of something swashbuckling, it's "flamboyantly adventurous." In a masculine sense, Hans Zimmer's current electronically-aided blockbuster style could be called adventurous. If you're in a technological setting, it matches the adventure well. And in his new theme for Jack Sparrow in Dead Man's Chest, he's tried to capture the flamboyant side of the character's wit. To be flamboyant, though, you have to be elaborate, ornate, and resplendent. Its own definition includes "richly colored," a phrase that dooms Zimmer's score because of the music's inability to resonate with the brilliant beauty and splendor necessary for the high seas (because, of course, the masculinity prevents it). If Zimmer wishes to persist with his deep basslines and limited instrumentation, then a flamboyant presence is simply not possible. Instead of flamboyance, the best he can accomplish is a melodramatic sense of adventure, which is why you hear a cue at the end of Dead Man's Chest that sounds as though someone's just disarmed a huge bomb, saved the world, or discovered the Holy Grail. Especially for those of us who have heard Zimmer from the start, how can we blindly accept this music for a historical Caribbean pirate genre when it's already seen its glory days in scenes where fighter planes are bombing Alcatraz Island and George Clooney is chasing nukes from a helicopter? Do people really wonder why the score nearly ruins the film for others? This is by no means an attack on modern instrumention. There is no reason why an intelligently incorporated expansion of the traditional swashbuckling palette couldn't include electronic percussion and even electric guitars. John Debney has used guitars very well with orchestral ensembles (a la The Scorpion King), and he likely would have had no problems sprinkling them wisely into something like Cutthroat Island, considered by many collectors to be the best swashbuckling score of the modern age despite the film's terrible struggles. Hans Zimmer's limited blockbuster palette has proven such a flamboyantly adventurous, elaborate, ornate, and resplendent score to be impossible. And this brings us to the second problem with these Pirates of the Caribbean scores (previewed above). Let's assume that you accept and enjoy the modernized Bruckheimer and Zimmer sound for the genre... and let's assume you had no problem with the first score in its film. For you, the dynamic "yo ho" swing is not necessary and maybe even outdated. If you look at Dead Man's Chest as a stand-alone score, or even just a stand-alone Hans Zimmer album, and compare it to his overarching body of work, it's derivative, boring, and occasionally irritating. Zimmer's made it very clear that he loves the same basslines, the same chord progressions, and the same instrumentation time and time again. Sometimes, when he throws all caution to the wind, and produces something shamelessly melodramatic, like King Arthur, it actually works as a good listening experience if you accept it as the steroid-popping kind of popcorn muscle that it is. In Dead Man's Chest, he tried some of that but didn't provide any spectacular new avenue on that line of thought. The "Hello Beastie" cue rambles on with several stereotypical Zimmer crescendos, all of which are frightfully old in sound. Much of the fault for this stale atmosphere exists in the instrumentation and mix of the music, or, perhaps more accurately, the instrumentation made necessary by Zimmer's desire for a certain mix. He prefers his scores to dwell so low in the bassline, often in overwhelming volume meant to convey power, that the use of dynamic high-range instrumentation is either drowned out or not even attempted. Nary a woodwind is to be heard in this score. Nor will you hear higher brass ranges with any decent employment. Even the violins are reduced to supporting roles, often chopping uselessly behind broad choral strokes or the monumentally heavier lower string ranges. Zimmer has used so many horns at once, all in unison, that the effect is a harsh, nearly electronic sound that also contributes to the bassline in such a fashion that you can't really determine each time if they are real or synthesized. The organ in "The Kraken" would be so much more effective if Zimmer would lose the heartbeat effect by percussion, the churning bass strings, and the electric guitar, all of which perform in their absolute lowest ranges and dilute the specialty instrument. How can you hope to achieve any heightened sense of style when you continue to use an ensemble so often as a clubbing stick? Overall, whether you can accept this style of music as appropriate for the swashbuckling genre or not, Dead Man's Chest is a mundane, predictable effort. Zimmer does attempt to broaden the dynamic range of the score by providing new character themes with deviations in rhythm and instrumentation from the original. But these deviations are still well within his usual stylistic parameters, nullifying the enjoyability of these attempts. If you did not enjoy The Curse of the Black Pearl, you stand only a minimal chance of finding merit in Dead Man's Chest. If you specifically enjoyed the constant frenzy of activity in the first score, then the sequel score could very well disappoint you. The battle lines that were drawn during the debate about the original score will persist, with Alan Silvestri fans continuing to bemoan his termination from the franchise. Such people should take aim at Bruckheimer rather than Zimmer, for it was Bruckheimer's vision of the Hollywood blockbuster that has given birth to Zimmer's now famous sound and methodology. That methodology of Zimmer includes the use of ghostwriters, and as mentioned above in this review, a note about those ghostwriters should be made. It was speculated by the hapless representative of another soundtrack site that the seven co-writers of this Dead Man's Chest score shouldn't be referred to as "ghostwriters" because they are credited in the booklet. Indeed, a "ghostwriter" is one who "gives the credit of authorship to someone else," and these Media Ventures clones are indeed credited. But are they really? Are their names on the covers of the CD booklet? Are their names on the movie poster? Are their names listed next to Zimmer's in the primary credits during the film? Are their names in a larger-than-minimum font size in the album booklet? And, perhaps most importantly, are they recognized for the extent of their contributions? Do we know what, exactly, they wrote? The answer to all of these questions is no, and that's why they're still ghostwriters. One would hope that with all these auxiliary composers, the diversity of the scores would range far better from the usual Hans Zimmer parade of sounds. And, as with before, it's hard to believe that none of these people took a clue from the music in the actual "Pirates of the Caribbean" ride at Disneyland. Unfortunately, Dead Man's Chest regurgitates previous Zimmer stock material more often than it invents, once again leaving Muppet Treasure Island as Zimmer's most interesting effort in the genre. *
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