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Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if you're either a sucker for Celtic influences in your pretty and unassuming orchestral scores or, to a lesser extent, a fan of James Newton Howard's bold action tones. Avoid it... if you expect this score to feature the same consistency of harmonic appeal as Howard's highly acclaimed and popular Lady in the Water. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
Whereas Lady in the Water established its magic immediately and maintained it throughout the score, The Water Horse is far more inconsistent. It can be split into three parts: the meandering conversational underscore for acoustic guitar and slight orchestral accompaniment, the rambunctious Celtic rhythms and their instrumentation, and the full-fledged orchestral action pieces. The first two elements dominate the opening 40% of the score, providing delicate textures suitable for the subject. The title theme, while established in the first score track, doesn't receive a worthy ensemble performance until halfway through the score, and its generally anonymous structure won't win any awards. The score doesn't delineate between the various parts of its story with strong themes, causing The Water Horse to embody whatever emotions are necessary for single cues. The forgettable cues of tender underscore that prevail in the first half of the score often use lighter shades of the rowdy Irish spirit that periodically explodes with the help of Irish fiddle, guitar, drums, harps, and the obligatory whistle/recorder. While accomplished in their imitation of the sound of The Chieftains (with some of the group's performers contributing to the score) and likely serving the film well, Howard's Celtic eruptions substantially disrupt the flow of the album. When combined well with the entire ensemble, as in "The Fisherman" (a cue complete with blatant clapping effects), the usage is more enjoyable. The score picks up in "Angus in Training," with the Irish instrumental flavor setting an upbeat rhythm that yields to a full subtheme performance with the ensemble. The subsequent "Swimming" cue introduces the choir to the ensemble (and, incidentally, some of Basil Poledouris' active string work from Free Willy), in many ways returning to the most ambitious performances of Waterworld. Hidden just over two minutes into "Swimming" is a magical Howard moment, featuring one of the score's two female wordless vocal performances of the title theme over a elegant harp rhythm complete with synthetic waterdrop sound effects. Had more of The Water Horse embodied this style, the score would easily be the best of the year. Later in the cue, bold brass action interludes lead to a full, choral performance of the title theme that will remind of the majestic parts of Howard's score for the animated Atlantis. A striking anomaly in The Water Horse is the parody cartoon-like cue "The Dinner Party," for which Howard underlines the humor of the event with several bursts of wild comedy rhythms that are a cross between Carl Stalling music for Warner cartoons and John Debney's work for the Inspector Gadget film. As a standalone track, it proves that Howard can handle these situations just as well as Debney, who has made it a staple of his career. In context with the rest of the score, it's quite annoying, though. A flowing choral crescendo in the latter half of "There's No Monster" opens the doors to the eight minutes of action at the climax of The Water Horse. These cues largely abandon the Celtic spirit and echo Howard's more traditional action scoring techniques. Snare-ripping, chime-banging, and washy choral waves accompany harmonic brass motifs in "Saving Crusoe" and first half of "The Net." The second half of the "The Net" offers an impressive rolling brass motif developing into the most troubled and dissonant action passage of the score in "The Jump." The score closes with a return to the intimate, harmonic beauty that the first half of the Howard's work touched upon. The first minutes of "End of the Story" offer the second wordless vocal performance of The Water Horse and once again is stunning in its gorgeous simplicity. After one last ensemble performance of the title theme, this final cue concludes with a slight, lovely, and mystical rhythmic performance of the theme for harp, guitar, and recorder. It was Russell's intent to use a song over the end titles, and Sinead O'Connor's original contribution fits very well with Howard's score. Written by O'Connor and benefiting from orchestral accompaniment arranged in part by Howard, "Back Where You Belong" is a bit bass heavy in the mix and resorts to obnoxious vocal overdubs where they aren't necessarily, but on the whole is quite pretty. Howard arranged his themes from the film for an 8-minute performance by The Chieftains specifically for the album, and their sound is consistent with their use in John Williams' Far and Away, as well as their own albums. They'll likely be skipped by most score fans. In the end, The Water Horse is too inconsistent in its alternations between the Celtic rhythms and orchestral underscore to be a top-notch effort, but it has undeniable charm and extremely impressive singular moments throughout. ****
The insert includes a note from the director about the score. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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