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The Hunger Games: Catching Fire: (James Newton
Howard) The immensely popular trilogy of books by Suzanne Collins once
again feeds the profitable cinematic series of
The Hunger Games
entries with its second venture,
Catching Fire. The 2013 project
earned continued praise and massive box office returns for Lionsgate,
enlivening a franchise set to produce feature films in 2014 and 2015.
The morbid post-apocalyptic fantasy concept still draw scrutiny in
regards to its socio-political implications, though audiences attached
to the euphoria of rebellion, senseless violence, and teenage romance
don't seem to care about deeper meanings. In this installment, the
living victors from the previous games are forced into a special
addendum match to help quiet a rebellion against the rich capital city
that is arising throughout impoverished outer districts. Thus, the story
sets up yet another series of games with the pawns drawing allegiances
for a greater good. The music for this franchise has been relatively
well received despite some issues with continuity. For the previous
film's score, Danny Elfman was fired by a director in search of more
artistic control over the project. James Newton Howard was brought in as
a late replacement and worked with T Bone Burnett to create a
sufficiently atmospheric fantasy score. For the sequel, Burnett is gone
but Howard remains, this time integrating his music with the
contribution of the group Coldplay, whose song for the picture, "Atlas,"
proved very popular. For Howard, the return meant that he could
accomplish a rarity for himself: a sequel score. And not just that, he
could finally flesh out ideas from the prior project into a better
rounded result. One of the primary criticisms of Howard's output for
The Hunger Games was his inability to write any of his own themes
with enough memorability to compete with the "Horn of Plenty" anthem
supplied by the group Arcade Fire. While Howard has achieved tremendous
success in the fantasy genre in prior years, this concept didn't seem to
bring out his best inspiration. Unfortunately, that trend continues in
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. The collection of ideas he
presents in the sequel is improved over the prior score, but there is
still an intangible element of cohesiveness missing from the whole.
The general demeanor of the music in
The Hunger
Games: Catching Fire matches that of its predecessor, with much of
the instrumentation and style of applications reprised. There has always
been a slight bluegrass element to the lead character's representations,
a nod to her rural upbringing. Howard explores that sound to a greater
degree here, with the help of an instrumentatal adaptation of "Atlas" in
"We're a Team." The classical style for the decadence of the capital
city is reprised as well (confined here mostly to source applications of
non-original music), along with the "Horn of Plenty" fanfare that is
arguably over-utilized in similar renditions in the picture. String
solos persist for the concept of persistence, yielding inevitably to the
full-fledged orchestral outbursts for sequences of awe and action. That
latter element is really emphasized well in
The Hunger Games:
Catching Fire. There is stunningly well-rendered action music in
"The Fog" and "Monkey Mutts" that rivals the best such material ever
conjured by Howard, at times churning in methods resembling John
Debney's better efforts. Both of these cues evolve into gloriously tonal
fantasy statements of grandeur that stir memories of
The Last
Airbender, and they, in concert with "Arena Crumbles" and a few
other choice fantasy ensemble cues, make the album presentation of this
score worth your interest. On the other side of the equation are
continued issues with anonymity. There are several underachieving cues
of plainly dull ambience, including "Fireworks" and "Peacekeepers," that
fail to maintain attention and beg to be dropped from the album. The
handling of themes in
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is a mixed
bag. The many uses of "Horn of Plenty" in the film are not reflected on
the album, which only supplies one new, short performance without much
variation on the idea. The theme for Rue from the previous film, which
figured prominently in the advertising campaign for the sequel, is heard
in several cues but only outright, though abbreviated, in "The Tour,"
raising continued questions about the purpose of the theme (is it for
Rue? That district? Or the concept of sacrifice?). The churning games
motif returns in "Let's Start" and makes a few other less notable
appearances under other action. The prior train motif is heard again in
"A Quarter Quell," its performance here still lightly compelling without
gaining much traction.
Howard does develop a few new themes in
The Hunger
Games: Catching Fire to replace motifs that were dropped from the
equation. A longing solo female vocalist is employed to convey an idea
more specifically for Katniss, and this identity intersects well with
the rural elements in "Katniss is Chosen." The dulcimer in this material
is a nicely foreign but resolute touch. The theme eventually culminates
in the victorious "Arena Crumbles," in which a major ensemble
performance overtakes the soloist with choir and shades of the Rue theme
in tow. Equally interesting is Howard's insertion of a love theme into
this score, necessitated by the continuing closeness between Katniss and
Peeta. Heard in smoothly pleasant string tones in "Just Friends," this
theme nicely utilizes slightly folksy progressions to further the rural
element. Its reappearance on acoustic guitar in "I Need You" serves as a
nice break from the overwhelming brutality of the action sequences heard
late on the album. That score-only album is an arduous listening
experience, at 75 minutes simply too long to support some of the lesser
material in the score. Its concluding cue is a disturbing one, a
sensible move given the narrative but not the best of ways to close an
album. A four-star 35-minute album could be condensed out of this music,
and enthusiasts of the concept are encouraged to add the Coldplay song
to that presentation to round out an optimum
The Hunger Games:
Catching Fire album. A handful of other songs featured in the film
are only available on the song compilation for the soundtrack, which
conversely offers none of Howard's score. On the whole, Howard improves
upon his work in the franchise with this sequel, finally having the time
to adequately develop his many themes into better representations of
concepts in the film. The issue with this music continues to be muddy
attributions of those themes and the composer's seeming inability to
really shine with any of them. None of Howard's themes enunciates itself
with enough consistency and clarity to truly serve as the franchise's
musical identity. If anything, "Horn of Plenty" is strangely still the
most memorable sonic element thus far. Some of Howard's own themes,
especially the love theme, could still evolve into that dominant
identity, but he may never get the opportunity if the productions insist
upon having outside influences define the songs or source cues. In this
case, Howard could have adapted the "Atlas" melody into a driving force
in this score but did not. At some point, he needs to step up and give
the franchise the overarching identity it deserves.
*** @Amazon.com: CD or
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| Bias Check: |
For James Newton Howard reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.4
(in 70 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.36
(in 86,486 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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