> Took a bloody long while, as these bastards tend to do, but here we are at
> that oh-so-glorious year of 2004! In order of theatrical release:

> Hidalgo - ***

> If you want some rousing, entertaining Western adventure music, then boy
> do we have…two or three great cues for you! The opening and final two
> tracks on this album are a lot of fun – the rest, man, I dunno. Way too
> much blah underscore and a ton of Middle Eastern-flavoured music that
> sounded like a rejected score from The Four Feathers. It’s aight.

Managed to pick this up a few months ago. I need another listen to know whether or not I should agree with this take.

> Hellboy - ***1/2

> Yet another “Pointless Riley Story”. So I go to A&B Sound, see this score
> for 20 bucks, and think “hell yeah, that guy did Blade II, I’m totally
> getting this”. And the fucking thing had weird skippy noises throughout.
> Annoyed, I take it back a couple weeks later, get a refund, buy it again –
> and the same thing happens. This was not exactly pre-internet, sure, but
> it was early enough that I hadn’t even thought to research this issue, and
> find out that the original album pressing had shit loads of glitches, so I
> wasn’t alone. Just pissed. Anyhoo, the music’s damn good – for my money,
> the best Hellboy music we’ve had so far. A lot of the action is downright
> freaky, the cue Fireproof being a great example, and others go more
> operatic and melodramatic than you’d expect from a movie where Ron Perlman
> wears a hundred pounds of red prosthetics and chomps cigars.

Beltrami's masterpiece, without question. I get the sense that it takes the right director to bring out this side of him because a lot of his stuff is aural wallpaper. Not so here. Truly gorgeous and colorful music. Why aren't all comic book adaptations scored like this? Seriously, somebody add that shit to the Constitution!

> The Punisher - ****

> Copy and pasted from my Non-MCU Score series last year:

> Another one of my first score purchases, this one took me by complete
> surprise at the time. For me, back then especially, “action scores” meant
> “Zimmer”. Anything that didn't sound like Media Ventures was foreign to
> me, and this decidedly old-fashioned, very orchestral score by Carlo
> Silotto, which sounds plucked right out of the 1970s, was an odd duck. Yet
> I still listened to it all the time, rapidly falling in love with it (I’m
> just gonna say the primary theme for The Punisher, epic and melancholy at
> the same time, is a Top 5 all time theme for the genre). I was going to
> give this 4.5/5, then I rewatched the movie for the first time in a decade
> last night, and…y’know what, it doesn’t quite work in context. It is often
> too over the top, too cheesy at times – hell, even the lead actor Thomas
> Jane complained about the score after loving the nearly music-less rough
> cut and then seeing this at the premiere, thinking it was far too
> melodramatic for the material. He might be right. I don’t care much
> though. Still awesome.

Pretty much what I just said. The score is too big for the movie and yet, perfect for it at the same time. Very operatic. Pity that Siliotto isn't a bigger name on this side of the pond.

> Van Helsing - ****1/2

> 2004 was my Alan Silvestri year. He’s never been one of my fave composers
> (of main themes, oh my yes, but for overall scores…not so much). But then
> in this glorious year, he rocked my bullocks with both Van Helsing and The
> Polar Express, which I maintain is his greatest all time score. Despite
> Pol-Ex being a Christmas family film, it’s similar to Van Helsing in that
> it contains the best action writing of his career – I listen to the energy
> and power and creativity in Helsing (that guitar in Journey to
> Transylvania, oh my gawwwwd) and then think back on his Avengers scores
> and I dunno…for me, it’s night and day. Van Helsing is 50 minutes of
> slam-bang adventure writing with the occasional splash of horror and
> romance, befitting the highly goofy yet highly enjoyable movie. Plus, THAT
> GUITAR IN JOURNEY TO TRANSYLVANIA!

One could argue that this is too big for the movie, but that's only if you've never seen the movie. I still remember the burn on this score in the Mad Magazine parody of the film. I'd love an expanded edition.

> Troy - ***1/2

> One of my favourite behind-the-scenes disaster stories has been the
> Gabriel Yared/James Horner debacle over Troy. It just kept going and going
> – I remember being flabbergasted when Yared posted a couple cues of his
> rejected score online before they got taken down. I don’t even know if at
> the time, I understood what a “rejected score” was, and yet here were a
> couple action cues that blew my absolute socks off, and then I went and
> listened to Horner’s last-minute slap-dash replacement and went “…huh”. So
> here’s the thing – the two scores just aren’t comparable. Yared’s is a
> masterpiece, Horner’s is a rush job so filled with Hornerisms that if you
> made it a drinking game and took a shot with every danger motif you’ll
> have liver failure by the end of its 75 minutes. But it still is a solid,
> effective action/drama score, the kind of music I would kill to have more
> of today. One of those things you take the good with the bad (or you just
> ignore Horner's, pop in Yared's, and get nothing but good).

A long time ago, there was a link to a cut of Troy that put Yared's music back into the film. Nothing against Horner, but I don't think I can watch the movie any other way. Smashing music.

> Spider-Man 2 - ****1/2

> Another copy and paste from my previous series:

> Rarely are sequel scores better than the first, but Elfman’s Spidey 2
> managed it – shocking considering how badly things went in post-production
> behind the scenes (the use of the Hellraiser music now that I’m a
> Hellraiser fan is hilariously distracting). The heroism is more
> highlighted and epic, the dramatic and romantic stuff more touching, and
> the action among the best of any Spidey flick. Also, unlike the first
> Spider-Man score, this one has a fantastic villain theme. So why do I give
> it the same 4.5/5 star rating? I dunno. This isn’t an exact science. It’s
> all slightly better while both not quite being masterpiece levels (if this
> seems cranky, remember that I have probably only given a full 5/5 stars to
> maaaaaaybe 50 scores). Anyways, it’s an awesome work, even with Chris
> Young (and John Debney too) having to pitch in to the whims of the
> director losing his marbles.

Not much to say here except I love Doc Ock's theme.

> I, Robot – ***1/2

> Marco did some quirk work with this sucker. Alex Proyas wanted to collab
> with Trevor Jones again for his new Will Smith bot-battling flick, but
> Jones had to pull out at the last minute, leaving Marco Beltrami 17 days
> to write and record the entire score. Considering the incredibly short
> time he had, it’s amazing the score turned out as good as it did – in fact
> it’s easily the Beltrami album I’ve listened to the most over the years,
> spinning it quite a few times in high school. The action is solid though a
> bit too choppy for my tastes (an issue I have with all Beltrami’s action
> writing), and there’s some mundane suspense underscore that won’t light
> anyone’s butt on fire. However, I Robot remains a damn fine album because
> Beltrami conjured up a fantastic main theme, one he uses throughout that
> comes across more mysterious and haunting than you’d expect.

Again, I'd love an expanded edition. This really was Beltrami's year.

> Paparazzi – **1/2

> This one is also just fine. Brian Tyler before he was really Brian Tyler
> doing an action/thriller in a Brian Tyler style before Brian Tyler Style
> was really stylish. So yeah, it’s…fine, I guess.

I'd bump it up a star. Not outstanding, but perfectly enjoyable suspense music. The 'investigation/realization' motif is especially great.

> Cellular – ??

> I dunno guys…it’s not on Spotify and it’s not on YouTube and it’s the only
> one I haven’t written about. I just wanna post this thing and get er done.
> Eff it!

It totally is on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OQ9PcVoQcA&list=PLxOPkrIZGdAjAfnsnGdFotE5GNeQp3n1w Terrific music. Ottman was sort of a master at these mid-budget thriller assignments. The material for the villains is quite witty. ****, easy.

> Sky Captain – ****

> Another year, another painful reminder how good Edward Shearmur was, and
> how awesome life was in the early 00’s when the guy got hired on so many
> big projects. Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow (if we’re gonna be
> picky and fully spell out the entire title) is an extreeeeemely dated
> movie, it’s “fully in a computer” special effects now looking as special
> as an Instagram filter made by my four year old, but at least it allowed
> Shearmur to harken back to the Korngold days of old-school, old-fashioned
> heroism and derring-do. I find the score almost a little exhausting as a
> straight-through listen, because it just keeps coming at you with so much
> signature classic 1940s Hollywood action sounding stuff, but that’s a good
> problem to have.

Fun sweeping music. Shearmur deserved a bigger career.

> Team America – ****

> One of the best satires and funniest movies of all time, Team America also
> gave us one of the best and funniest satires of modern film scoring. Harry
> Gregson Williams, taking scoring duties over from Marc Shaiman after some
> creative differences (luckily Shaiman’s hilarious songs stayed in)
> understood the assignment to a T. Whereas most cranky critics at the time
> were too pissed at the movie’s politics and too-soon approach to
> terrorism, those of us who hated Michael Bay/Jerry Bruckheimer action
> movies knew exactly what the movie was actually spoofing, and HGW
> delivered a perfectly straight-faced Media Ventures score that would’ve
> fit like a glove in any Bay/Bruckheimer crapfest. The action, the overly
> serious moments, and especially the power anthem – he nailed it all, so
> well.

Not sure how likely an official release with the songs and both scores is, but the regular album is pretty fun (even if I do miss the wonderfully ridiculous end credits tune 'You Are Worthless, Arec Barwin').