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| Gregson-Williams |
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Shrek 2: (Harry Gregson-Williams) Riding the wave
created by the monumental success of
Shrek a few years before, this
direct sequel begins right where the first tale left off. Several new
peripheral characters adorn
Shrek 2 with even more eccentric humor
than before, and despite a tendency for such sequels to have the many
straight-to-video kinds of production faults,
Shrek 2 suffers no such
problems. While purists will cling to the original film to the very end,
Shrek 2 was both a critical and popular success, not only continuing
the massive fiscal success of the now-series at the box office, but gaining
a surprisingly positive response from hardened critics as well. The music
for the first film was very much a mirror of the story's pop-culture range,
with Harry Gregson-Williams and John Powell providing an orchestral
punch-line comedy score. While popular and successful in and of itself, that
original score provided some challenges when enjoyed apart from the film;
the slapstick nature of the film translated directly to the music, making
for an inconsistent sound from jump to jump. Gregson-Williams and Powell
have collaborated on these children's films a few times now, though their
careers have begun to spin both artists off into a niche of their own. While
Powell has headed for the shinier pastures of mainstream action,
Gregson-Williams has kept a firmer foot in the door of the children's realm,
with a vivacious and energizing score for
Sinbad just over a year
before this
Shrek sequel. Gregson-Williams takes over the reigns by
himself for
Shrek 2, extending many of the same themes and flavors
experienced in the first film. Any time you have the same characters and
themes in a sequel, whether the composers are the same or not, you do have
the opportunity to hear those themes developed in new ways and in greater
depth. You get this and more in the score for
Shrek 2.
The musical style of Gregson-Williams for
Shrek 2 is
just as much of an extension of
Sinbad as it is of the original
Shrek. A very welcomed consistency of sound is now present in the
music for this series, with Gregson-Williams maintaining a solid base of
rhythms, themes, and instrumentation from start to finish. He still manages
some of the slapstick elements, and in "Far Far Away," you're treated to the
'dissolving orchestra' trick as the players comically drop off as they would
in a performance suddenly cut short. In "The Ball," you hear a big band jazz
performance of the title theme, and in "Tonight on 'Knights'" there is a
funked-out techno-rock rendition of some theme (hard to tell, really). A
brief mention of
Mission: Impossible style graces "The Mission" with
the action theme from the first film rearing its daring character; we're
also given the full treatment of this theme during the "Dragon!!" cue at the
very end. It is still difficult to figure how Gregson-Williams and Powell
couldn't have had Rabin's
Deep Blue Sea theme in their head when
composing this, and the blatant rip-off/curiosity continues here in these
short passages. But for the rest of the length of the score, the orchestra
shines with more complete and better developed expressions of other themes
from the first film. The pseudo-scary rhythmic opening to "The Factory" is a
delight. The scenes dealing with Fiona's personality receive special
treatment, often producing moments of emotional and magical awe, highlighted
by "Fiona's Room" and "Magic Tea." Instrumentation is largely related to
base orchestral elements, though the Spanish guitar insertion in "By the Ol'
Oak" is a welcomed deviation. The choir is not as pronounced in
Shrek
2 as Gregson-Williams had used it in
Sinbad, but it provides a
few moments of movie magic that fans of
Chicken Run's finale have
come to expect from these projects. The overall clarity of the recording is
definitely something Gregson-Williams did carry over from
Sinbad; the
orchestra is crystal clear, with superior mixing of each element and
tremendous balance across all ranges. Across the board,
Shrek 2 is an
improvement over its predecessor.
****
| Bias Check: | For Harry Gregson-Williams reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating
is 3.09 (in 22 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.24
(in 42,165 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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The insert includes extensive movie stills, but has no extra information about the score or film.
