Buy it... only if you noticed the score in the film itself and appreciated Ryuichi Sakamoto's strikingly classical methodology in contrast to the film's visual style.

Avoid it... if you expect the score to engage you on album with the same expansive flair that the film had.

Sakamoto

Snake Eyes: (Ryuichi Sakamoto) If there were ever a perfectly fine film that was so totally and utterly decimated by its own atrocious ending, Snake Eyes would be near the top of the list. Director Brian De Palma's stunning sense of visual style is completely betrayed by a terrible ending forced upon the film by its budget restrictions, but that didn't hinder the first ten stunning minutes of the production. An elaborate assassination at an Atlantic City boxing match is staged with phenomenal precision, and the investigation into that killing is handled with outstanding intelligence. But by the time the hurricane outside the arena plays as a central figure, the film has disintegrated into one of the most disappointing conclusions in recent memory. One interesting aspect of De Palma's career has been his constant switching between composers, both obscure and famous, for his projects. Following his collaboration with Danny Elfman for Mission: Impossible, De Palma would turn to Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto for the score for Snake Eyes. The project would be one of his most visible films to Americans since he won the Academy Award for The Last Emperor more than ten years before. His music for Snake Eyes would be an interesting study, because there are listeners who both dislike the score because of its inappropriateness for the film, and others who love it for just the same reason. There is nothing as strange at times as seeing Nicolas Cage frantically gesticulating and yelling on screen while Sakamoto's restrained classical music is playing. This juxtaposition is evident right at the start, with the lengthy, meandering single shot challenged by its own choice of musical accompaniment. In some regards, the extremely conservative approach taken by Sakamoto threatens to make his music irrelevant when you are dazzled by the visual elements of the film. Anyone expecting the score to be vibrant in a modern sense will be disappointed, for Sakamoto provided a striking classical score for Snake Eyes, one perhaps better suited for a film like Gattaca than this one. Michael Nyman fans, pay attention.

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The title theme for Snake Eyes will fail to engage you in the film, but it is definitely a beauty on album. Heard in suites at the opening and closing of the score section on that album, the "Snake Eyes" theme is a restrained string piece with the kind of slow solace that only the prelude to a requiem could demand. The classically-inclined alternations of string layers will put some listeners to sleep, though by the end of the longer suite, a dramatic snare rhythm provides the score's thematic highlight. While the theme makes some cameos in the remainder of the score, Sakamoto's work jumps wildly in style from one track to the next. The cues for the Julia character are most related to the quiet string meanderings of the title theme. But in "Assassination," "The Hunt" and the monumental climax in "The Storm," a very stark, dissonant style erupts. To say that there is an influence by Bernard Herrmann in this music would be an understatement, especially in the violent performances by the brass section. The downright vicious brass rendition of the title theme in "The Storm" would unfortunately be cut down in the film because of Paramount's problems with the ending. By far the most interesting cue in the score is "Tyler and Serena," a piece that better merges Sakamoto's classical talents with his experiments on synthesizer. He takes an enticing saxophone performance mixed in the distance over the string section and mutilates its performance to Robert Rodriguez's Sin City levels. Here, though, the distortion is extremely intriguing, especially as it is followed by some Golden Age string romance writing pushing directly at the film noir buttons. The entire score probably could have used some more of this innovative approach, for as it stands, significant portions of it are underdeveloped and boring. The three mid-section cues from "Kevin Cleans Up" to "Blood on the Medals" offer dissonant strings without much direction or interesting accompaniment. The film's end credits sequence uses a very decent Meredith Brooks rock song, a track that will overshadow the score on album. The final hop-hop song was never worth inclusion on the album. Ultimately, Snake Eyes is a score better heard on album than in the film.   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download

Score as Written for Film: **
Score as Heard on Album: ***
Overall: **