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| Isham |
Dolphin Tale: (Mark Isham) Entertainment doesn't
get much more wholesome than the family fluff packaged in 2011's
Dolphin Tale, a film inspired by a real-life experiment to fit an
injured dolphin with a prosthetic tail. When the animal was discovered
off the coast of Florida, its tail had been mangled in a crab trap, and
a group of veterinarians and employees of the Clearwater Marine Aquarium
took the dolphin, then named Winter, into their care. With the
assistance of a scientist who designed the prosthetic tail, Winter
eventually regains the ability to swim. For the purposes of the
cinematic adaptation of the story, several plot elements were
embellished or altered for dramatic purposes, most obviously including
children into the plotline when none existed as integral to the actual
events. The film also came under some minor heat for casting Morgan
Freeman in role of the scientist, who in real life is not black. Still,
the project was hailed as a tremendous success by Christian groups
because of its friendly PG-rated personality, and it's hard to knock any
project in the 2010's that tosses Kris Kristofferson onto the screen.
Critics agreed, and the movie recouped its production budget after only
two weeks in the theatres. Handling the composing duties for
actor-turned-director Charles Martin Smith is Mark Isham, whose career
is not littered with too many projects that anyone could misconstrue
into being "wholesome." Known primarily for his introspective dramatic
and electronically grating horror music, Isham has delved into the
children's genre at times in the past, though, often with great success.
It's refreshing to see the composer return to this style of writing,
especially after his rather predictable and often substandard approaches
to
The Crazies and
The Mechanic just prior. Film music
collectors will recall that arguably his two top career achievements
remain
Fly Away Home in 1996 and
Racing Stripes in 2005,
both projects aimed at children and involving wayward animals. While
Dolphin Tale does not compete favorably with those two prior
efforts in direct comparisons (both of which contain a fair amount of
five-star material), it does reach for the same emotional appeal through
orchestrally tonal innocence. Isham leaves behind the moody half of his
array of synthesizers for all but the most mild faux-choral ambience for
the darker moments of
Dolphin Tale, instead writing a chipper,
organic series of light-hearted cues that flourish into ensemble
crescendos of joy when necessary.
It's actually slightly disappointing that Isham did not
attempt to better emphasize his vast synthetic libraries to support his
music for
Dolphin Tale in the same way that Basil Poledouris
succeeded so greatly with
Free Willy, though perhaps avoiding
such emulation was the intent. Instead, Isham plays it extremely
conservatively. The meandering ambience aided by soft synthetic tones
early in the score creates a somewhat watery environment, non-offensive
despite being non-descript. Isham occasionally addresses the water
itself in more direct ways, including undulating figures in impressive
rhythmic form at the outset of "The Coming Storm." The funk factor is
avoided until "Clay Changes His Mind," in which light percussive rhythms
offer a spirit of affable excitement to the score. Only rarely does
Isham attempt to traverse into darker melodramatic territory outside of
his synthetic ambience, the timpani passage in "Winter Tries Another
Tail" a rare deviation. Later in that cue, he extends the synthetic
melding of strings and pipes (think James Horner's
Titanic but
extremely restrained) into a duet with piano. While that instrument has
a few notable moments of sentimentality, the majority of interesting
instrumental colors in
Dolphin Tale is provided by the woodwinds.
The flute in particular has a few evocative moments, though not as
memorable as in prior Isham triumphs in the genre. The energetic full
ensemble moments are the score's most endearing, and they also include
some outstanding usage of brass. Both "Sawyer and Winter" and "The New
Tail" serve as previews of the full expressions of theme that eventually
explode in "Swim." These passages recall the most brightly optimistic
and heroic portions of
Racing Stripes, but not in sustained
enough quantity to solely base a recommendation of the entire score
album upon them. Unquestionably, "Swim" is the highlight of the score
should you be in search of only cue with which to represent the score.
In "Dolphin Dance" and "Dolphin Tale End Credits," Isham bookends the
score with more sappy emotional variations on the thematic core, the
latter a good summary of the instrumental techniques heard throughout
the album. While the score for
Dolphin Tale does hit the right
feel-good chords in the most important moments of familial closeness and
scientific achievement in the story, its overall narrative isn't as
strong as it could have been. The adversity sequences are seemingly
underplayed in the music, and the themes, while clearly evident, aren't
spectacular in and of themselves. It's still a nice diversion back to
happier times for Isham, one that, like the film, will not offend a
single soul.
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| Bias Check: |
For Mark Isham reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 2.84
(in 26 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 2.87
(in 9,959 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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