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Review of Cats & Dogs (John Debney)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you are among those who balked at spending the money
on the rare albums for John Debney's My Favorite Martian and
Inspector Gadget, for Cats & Dogs is a very similar
alternative.
Avoid it... if you rank predictable parody scores by the number of creative instrumental opportunities missed in their contents.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
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. ***
TRACK LISTINGS:
Total Time: 33:54
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert includes a list of performers, but no extra information
about the score or film.
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The reviews and other textual content contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Christian Clemmensen at Filmtracks Publications. All artwork and sound clips from Cats & Dogs are Copyright © 2001, Varèse Sarabande and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 8/28/01 and last updated 2/8/09. |
