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| Debney |
Cats & Dogs: (John Debney) Attempting to cater to
the suburban world's population of 8-year-olds, the directorial debut of
Lawrence Guterman is a comedy techno thriller about the highly
sophisticated worldwide battle that exists between cats and dogs
(without the knowledge of those pesky humans, of course). When a human
invents a cure for his species allergies to dog dander, the secret
agents of cat society swing into action to stop an event that could
switch the balance of power in the pet world over to dogs. The mutts
have their own agents however, and accompanying the remarkably stupid
original script for the film is an utterly predictable score by
children's genre veteran John Debney. Whether or not by his own choice,
Debney was entrenching himself into the typecast of a composer whose
expertise suited him best for the action/comedy genre, and especially
wacky and dumb children's films. His career had been defined by these
projects since the mid-1990's, and yet most of the attention brought to
Debney by mainstream score fans was caused by such uncharacteristic
projects as
Cutthroat Island and
End of Days. Since 1999,
Debney had been experimenting in a variety of genres, including the
electronically dense and marginally enjoyable scores for
Michael
Jordan to the Max (an IMAX picture in which Debney's score is
upstaged by the insertion of Hans Zimmer's
Crimson Tide into
certain key sequences) and the football comedy
The Replacements,
which was best forgotten on both screen and album. For
Cats &
Dogs, Debney was presented with the paycheck-collecting opportunity
to record with a large Los Angeles orchestra and flex his muscle in
slapstick comedy scoring once again. His work for
My Favorite
Martian and
Inspector Gadget never made it onto commercial
albums, though their promotional releases remained popular finds in the
collector's markets at the time of this 2001 entry in the genre. For the
composer,
Cats & Dogs is a sister score to
My Favorite
Martian and
Inspector Gadget rather than to
Paulie,
the misadventure with a talking bird that was released by Varèse
Sarabande to grumbling fans three years prior. Casual collectors of
Debney's works will notice very little difference between
Cats &
Dogs and those prior, highly functional parody scores.
As usual, Debney's talent for interpreting pop culture
themes into his orchestral works is placed at the forefront. The Lalo
Schifrin theme for the
Mission: Impossible television series is a
pronounced influence in two of the early cues, establishing without a
doubt the technological mastery of these cats and dogs in their epic
battle. Interestingly, beyond these stylish performances, the score has
surprisingly few purely slapstick comedy moments. Both
My Favorite
Martian and
Inspector Gadget were difficult to appreciate at
certain points because they were so frantic in their bouncy enthusiasm
for their genre.
Cats & Dogs, while still maintaining the
charisma of the storyline, is a smoother and more consistent listening
experience. The full orchestra, which performs well but is mixed rather
flatly, kicks with ferocious force during some cues, but never in too
silly of a context. Debney introduces a tender primary theme for the
heroic lead puppy, Lou, that flourishes at the conclusion of "Lou's
Alive!" The harmonica-produced simplicity of the theme is corny to an
extent, but a film involving cute, talking canines and felines is well
served by this tone. On album, it becomes easier to notice two notable
traits to the score. First, Debney only scratches the surface of the
unique forms of orchestration he could have employed for the animals
themselves. For the cats, he employs a scratchy violin cascade in short
bursts (nothing to the extent of Danny Elfman's
Batman Returns,
however) and that creative motif seems underused throughout the score.
Likewise, there doesn't seem to be a creative instrumental
representation of the woofing dogs (such as what Jerry Goldsmith did in
The 'Burbs), a definite opportunity missed. The other noteworthy
aspect of
Cats & Dogs is the numerous similarities in theme to
James Horner's prior works. While there are some subtle references to
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and
The Pagemaster in some
of the comedy cues, the theme for Lou is a direct relative of Horner's
The Land Before Time, another talking animal film. Overall,
Cats & Dogs confirms Debney's obvious talents in composing
large-scale, silly scores. Each of these entries predictably functions
in their respective films, but in this case,
Cats & Dogs doesn't
feature enough outlandish creativity in instrumentation to make it
distinctive on album.
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| Bias Check: |
For John Debney reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.27
(in 52 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.01
(in 44,999 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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The insert includes a list of performers, but no extra information
about the score or film.
