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The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep: (James Newton
Howard) Just when you think the formula has been exhausted, another
studio cranks out a "lonely child nurtured back to emotional health by
an animal companion" film. The equation is slightly different this time,
with the animal taking the form of the Loch Ness Monster and the setting
being 1942 Scotland. A young boy who has lost his father and is in
search of a friend discovers a reptile egg that hatches into the baby
monster, an affectionate beast raised for a time in the family bathtub.
As the animal outgrows the home, he's released into the famous lake, and
the boy helps save the aptly named Crusoe from those who would capture
or kill him. The film opened to surprisingly positive reviews, putting
an intriguing spin on the usual happy, children's genre with enough
decent special effects to entertain adults. American director Jay
Russell, whose collaborations with composer William Ross have been more
plentiful, turned to James Newton Howard specifically because of his
recent works; it's possible that Howard's extremely acclaimed and
popular score for the previous year's
Lady in the Water
contributed to this request. Fans immediately drew the same conclusions,
with many of Howard's most ardent collectors creating the same kind of
hype for
The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep. Since
Lady in
the Water, Howard's scores have been firmly rooted in the tense,
electronic realm of modern suspense, a genre for which he has never
produced stellar results. Indeed,
The Water Horse is a return to
a fantasy genre in which Howard seems most inspired in recent years.
Perhaps the strangest, but ironically predictable aspect of Howard's
music for the film is the fact that it is Irish in flavor, despite the
Scottish setting. This happens frequently in Hollywood, and is no doubt
attributable to the specific requests that Russell made upon Howard.
Most audiences can't tell the difference between the two cultures'
instruments and their sounds anyway. For some listeners, this blatant
Celtic tilt, extending to the involvement of Sinead O'Connor and The
Chieftains for additional material not related to the initial recording
of the score, will be unforgivable. If you can look past this obvious
problem,
The Water Horse contains several redeeming highlights to
counter its very slow start.
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.
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| Bias Check: | For James Newton Howard reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating
is 3.31 (in 53 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.16
(in 58,041 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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The insert includes a note from the director about the score.
