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Perhaps most at fault for Goldsmith's decline was his selection of productions for which to write, and by sticking to his established collaborations more often than not (Along Came a Spider, for instance, reunited him with Tamahori after their work together for The Edge), he ultimately became attached to trashy pictures. Even the composer lamented in his final years that he had become mired in terrible assignments. Ultimately, if Goldsmith wanted to win another Oscar, then writing derivative music for inevitable failures like Along Came a Spider was never the way to do it. While there remained a minority audience for mundane Goldsmith scores like Hollow Man and Along Came a Spider, it had become increasingly clear that the composer's days of even providing at least a mediocre motif or theme at the conclusion of his scores had passed. What most collectors heard was a legendary composer on autopilot. It came as no surprise, therefore, that there is absolutely nothing in Along Came a Spider that Goldsmith fans had not heard five or six times before in previous years. Of Goldsmith's minimalistic suspense scores, in fact, this one is by far the most boring. It served as evidence that he wasn't even making a concerted effort in his 2000 and 2001 scores (including the subsequent The Last Castle) to create a new sound, a new structural reinvention, or any new approach to his balance between the synthetic and the orchestral. Even with Mark McKenzie brought in to orchestrate Along Came a Spider (replacing Alexander Courage), listeners hear the same old, tired electronics and orchestral elements. Goldsmith's music spends a significant amount of its time establishing the setting and atmosphere of the story, leading to lengthy sequences of single cello plucks and other bumps and groans that require amplification just to hear.

In "Night Talk," Goldsmith's trademark metallic electronics drone away for three minutes, barely interrupted by occasional dissonant sways of the strings. The electronic sound effect of a vibrating metal wire heard in this cue is obviously meant to give an aural representation of a spider, but it is not pronounced enough to be even remotely exciting. The action sequences are stereotypically handled with standard hits of the orchestra, usually followed by the kind of drab brass motifs that punctuate the later Star Trek scores. The chasing or searching scenes offer tiresome drum pad explosions from countless other Goldsmith scores. In "The Ransom," Goldsmith finally develops the percussion and brass into extended motifs that promise to reveal a cohesive theme for the score, but this is one of the few projects late in his career for which his themes are so anonymous in structure and buried in the soundscape that they make no impression whatsoever. The one interesting aspect of these louder moments is the performance of the piano in the latter half of the score, hinting at the staggered rhythms of Capricorn One and Contract on Cherry Street. Otherwise, there is really nothing original or interesting about the score for Along Came a Spider. The final track doesn't resolve with any satisfaction, leaving the listener with 35 minutes of bland and uninspiring underscore. To the credit of the engineers, the mixing of Goldsmith's late scores remains consistent, leading since 1998 to a phenomenal presence of the orchestra and crisp resonance in each of its sections. Better sound quality doesn't lead to originality, though, and longtime Goldsmith collectors had every reason to be secretly nervous that the composer was losing his touch in the precious few assignments he had remaining before his death in 2004. Only the somewhat engaging "The Ransom" pulls this score above the lowest rating.  **   @Amazon.com: CD or Download

Bias Check:

For Jerry Goldsmith reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.28 (in 113 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.3 (in 142,535 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.

Total Time: 34:59