Ever since his music for Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire featured some fantastic adaptations of John Williams' style, McNeely had been known as a composer talented enough to mirror the style of anyone, which is partly why he made such a competent conductor of re-recordings in the subsequent decade. The bulk of McNeely's contributions to Air Force One came in the second act, and contrary to rumors, some of these cues are major action pieces, including all the scenes in which the plane is fired upon by friend and foe. The impression that McNeely handled the table scraps is incorrect; his impact on several scenes late in the film is significant, and many of the bland moments of underscore during dialogue and suspense scenes are actually Goldsmith's work alone. McNeely's adaptations of Goldsmith's themes for Air Force One are outstanding, even if they were simply extending the style of Goldsmith's stock 1990's action material. He uses all of Goldsmith's themes, including the family theme and liberal usage of the Russian material. He also does a very competent job of altering the rather static main theme to some interesting variants by using key shifts and note substitutions worthy of praise. During the hectic recording sessions, Goldsmith even joked with the younger composer that he was putting in too much effort and complexity for a cue like "The Dogfight." As for Goldsmith's own material, the combined "Hijacking" cue is among his more interesting 1990's action music, though much of the rest sounds like typical insertions from the same library of study. He uses very few synthetic elements in Air Force One, though, a rarity at the time for Goldsmith. Woodwind-like effects join their organic counterparts in "Empty Hall, Downstairs, Hanging About" to foreshadow equivalent cues in The Haunting. McNeely utilizes a slight electronic rhythm-setter at the outset of the attack by Russian planes. The finale cue of "Welcome Aboard" takes substantial structural inspiration from the finale of Rudy, sharing the same feel-good attitude down to the precise instrumentation and tone of performance. Other small references can be made to the harsher brass usage in The Shadow. On the whole, the score has few truly standout Goldsmith moments, including "The Hijacking" and latter half of "The Parachutes" (the closing chimes are a nice touch), but the rest fails to attract much attention when compared to Goldsmith's standard output at the time. The truly interesting action material to be considered is indeed McNeely's, as well as the development of the effective Russian motifs fleshed out by both composers.

The album situation for Air Force One was for many years a source of much ridicule from film score collectors, the score long begging for some kind of expanded treatment in honor of the now-deceased Goldsmith. The Randy Newman score, as mentioned before, was leaked for public consumption not long after the film's release, and its presentation features two dozen tracks that were initially unlabeled but have since been given their proper cue titles. The sound quality on the pseudo-promo turned bootleg is decent enough not to be an issue for all but the most discerning listeners. The 1997 commercial Varèse Sarabande release of the final score for Air Force One was a touchy subject, both for fans and for the label. The ridiculed release contained only about one-third of the recorded music from the film and presented its limited contents out of order. Additionally, though stating on the packaging that there exists "additional music in the picture by Joel McNeely," none of that material made it onto their album. While the two major action pieces of length highlighting the score are present on the 35-minute Varèse product, most of the Russian material is absent. This includes the extremely popular choral rendition of the Russian theme as General Radek is ceremoniously released from jail and then immediately killed. (The preceding tune sung by the inmates is a traditional piece not written by any of the composers for the score; it does not appear on any album associated with the score.) Given that Air Force One really needed at least a 45-minute album (but more likely a 60-minute one) to provide all of the noteworthy thematic material, the Varèse album was derided online and in feedback directly to them for years. This is an obvious sore point for the label, which consistenly claimed that it could not afford the hefty union-based re-use fees on any more of the Los Angeles-recorded music, especially the choral piece. Not surprisingly, the fans discarded that reasoning and took care of their own problem by defying Varèse with a double CD bootleg that famously circulated around the collector's market starting in 1999. While being complete, its sound quality of the bootleg was always its primary issue. The Goldsmith material lifted from Varèse's album, as well as McNeely's contributions (which had been leaked on his own promo of sorts not long after the film's release), sounded great. In fact, the McNeely portions were nothing short of spectacular in mixing quality. But the additional Goldsmith material was badly muted and difficult to enjoy. This includes the famed choral piece, which continued to elude collectors in its pristine form.

In 2019, Varèse finally pressed a full presentation of the Goldsmith and McNeely score as part of their limited CD Club series, and this album solved all ills with the album situation. The sound quality is magnificent throughout the product, and the label even re-created the edited "End Credits" arrangement. The late 1990's was a time when Goldsmith's scores often sounded incredible in their spread and reverb, and Air Force One, while not as dynamic as the composer's 1998 and 1999 recordings, is still quite resounding in its original mix. As almost to punctuate their achievement, Varèse appended "(With Chorus)" to the title of the "Radek's Release" track which, finally, provides the cue in all its magnificent glory. (In retrospect, McNeely's lifting of this idea for Virus is probably more entertaining.) The extension of this theme in "Sign It!" is another highlight of the expanded album. Twenty-five minutes of alternate takes are included on the album, some of them mixed in with the primary presentation, leaving the film versions for the section of bonus tracks at the end. The alternate takes are not significantly varied from their film version counterparts, mostly supplying redundancy to the album. The expanded presentations, whether on the bootlegs or on the limited Varèse product, do expose some of the score's weaker suspense passages, a cue like "Hostage President" offering a few notable glimpses of the Russian material but otherwise rather underwhelming. On the other hand, "Air Force One in Trouble" contains excellent, melodramatic alterations to the main and family themes to afford weightier drama to the equation, including another woodwind-led performance of the latter identity. In the mass of 15 previously unreleased tracks ending the first CD of Varèse's set, "Dumping Fuel" is another attractive moment of heavier drama tinged with the Russian shades. Interestingly, the only cue in the score solely credited to McNeely without any adaptation of Goldsmith's themes is the quite decent "Fuel's On Its Way." Overall, Varèse's 2019 set is the proper and definitive presentation of this score, and both the 1997 commercial product and the Randy Newman bootlegs should be ignored. From an intellectual standpoint, the final score will remain an affable, comfortingly recognizable staple of Goldsmith's 1990's output even if it's mostly redundant, and McNeely's contribution needs praised at every moment possible. There remains an undeserved level of hype for both scores, however, Newman's work awkwardly inappropriate for the premise and Goldsmith's main and family themes failing the originality test despite the fame the former has acquired since becoming a symbol of making America great again.   @Amazon.com: CD or Download