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Howard |
Gnomeo & Juliet: (Elton John/James Newton
Howard/Chris Bacon) William Shakespeare not only inspired the 2011
animated comedy
Gnomeo & Juliet in name and concept, but he also
appears as a character in the story who cautions of inevitable tragedy
in the plot. As expected, however, a sour ending is not in the cards for
the garden gnomes in the CGI-animated film, one that bounced around
between several Disney-affiliated studios before oddly landing at
Touchstone. Despite several years of production stops and starts that
rotated through multiple directing candidates,
Gnomeo & Juliet
eventually landed on its feet and reached the expected $100 million mark
at the box office within only a couple of weeks. The story pits the
garden gnomes of two unfriendly neighbors against each in a state of
open warfare that involves the use of lawnmowers to attack each others'
home turf. The wars stop when humans walk by, of course, following the
most basic rule of the
Toy Story universe. In the midst of this
war, the leader of one of the yards of gnomes, Gnomeo, accidentally
comes across the beautiful "daughter" gnome of another nearby yard,
Juliet, and the two navigate the adventure of the larger battle on their
way to realizing the "happily ever after" destiny that alluded
Shakespeare's original duo of lovers. Mixed reviews may foreshadow
Gnomeo & Juliet's unlikelihood of earning the respect and money
of its Disney/Pixar counterparts, though such outcome probably wouldn't
be the fault of the throngs of Elton John fans out there. The legendary
knighted performer served as one of the producers on the project and
basically saturates the movie with his music. His involvement within the
realm of animation is most commonly associated with
The Lion King
and, to a lesser extent,
The Road to El Dorado, both situations
in which composer Hans Zimmer provided the adaptations of John's
melodies into the original scores. For
Gnomeo & Juliet, John
seems to have retained even more control over the usage of music,
utilizing a balance of both old and new songs of his and applying those
ideas directly to the score in such a way that the strictly instrumental
portions really have no identity of their own.
To supply the score adaptations in
Gnomeo &
Juliet, John went back to his old band collaborator, James Newton
Howard, for the assignment, and it is an area in which the composer is
comfortable from his lengthy contract working on Disney's non-musicals a
decade prior. Assisting Howard for
Gnomeo & Juliet are his
longtime assistants, Chris Bacon and Stuart Michael Thomas. For film
score collectors, there isn't much from Howard and crew in
Gnomeo &
Juliet in terms of quantity, and, as expected, unless you're an
enthusiast of John's music, the score could become tedious quickly. The
film touches upon several of his songs throughout its run and utilizes
the score as a bridge element that quotes very liberally from these
songs. John penned two new ones for
Gnomeo & Juliet, led by a
Western-influenced, slightly retro "Hello Hello" that bubbles along with
friendly attitude. More appealing to romantics is "Love Builds a
Garden," one of those prototypical John love songs that relies heavily
upon the piano but eventually swells with string, acoustic guitar, and
choral accompaniment of soft reflection. The rest of the film and
soundtrack album is populated by vintage John recordings, with the
exception of the unspeakably hideous mutilation of "Crocodile Rock" in a
version specifically remade for this film. For enthusiasts of the
performer, it'll be a decent buy, but it's difficult to ignore the
differences in the man's voice as it matured and changed over such a
long stretch; at times, his older recordings are almost unrecognizable
compared to his tone of the past twenty years. The score by Howard and
his associates (Bacon gets major credit as well even though he is only
afforded direct attribution for two of the tracks) is standard material
you'd expect for an animation film, stepping sometimes into Randy Newman
territory. A regular orchestra is joined by cooing, light chorus and a
handful of solo accents, including acoustic and electric guitars and
harpsichord. They function admirably while also constantly referencing
the melodies of the songs, a neat attraction for John collectors.
Several shorter cues have been assembled into 17 minutes of score over
four tracks on the album, the first two representing the lighter
material and the latter two addressing the action.
The affable pair of "Gnomeo & Juliet" and "Dandelions"
is where the best listening comes, the former opening with several
surprisingly pretty renditions of "Rocket Man" for a couple of minutes
before moving on to similarly alluring performances of "Tiny Dancer."
The highlight of
Gnomeo & Juliet is "Dandelions," opening with a
few renditions of "Love Builds a Garden" on gentle piano and guitar
before exploring "Your Song" for the remainder of the cue suite. By the
time the full orchestra and chorus back the piano in that cue, you'd
swear you're listening to Craig Armstrong's adaption of the same song in
the classic
Moulin Rouge, never a detriment to any album. As
parody-level action takes over in "Bennie and the Bunnies,"
interpolations of "Bennie and the Jets" and "I'm Still Standing" take
the score into a technologically glitzy direction symbolic of John
Debney's work in the genre. Passages dominated by electronics or exotic
percussion in that cue overshadow bursts of raw orchestral energy. Even
more frantic is "Terrafirminator," merging most of the previous song
adaptations with one of "Saturday Night's Alright" for five minutes of
wildly stuttering action material alleviated only by twenty seconds of
choral majesty at the end. The Carl Stalling-like material in these
latter two cues won't really impress many listeners (sound quality is
decent, but none of the solo elements stands out with distinction and
the ambience is somewhat dry), but for John enthusiasts, the two new
songs and first two score tracks may merit some exploration of the
album. The product does not include the "Hello Hello" version heard in
the film that features John's duet with Lady Gaga; chalk up another loss
to squabbles between record labels and their ownership over artists. On
the other hand, the album does include the source recording of "The Tiki
Tiki Tiki Room," a fitting end to the two cartoonish Howard action cue
tracks. Overall,
Gnomeo & Juliet is targeted firmly at John
listeners, so unless you film score collectors out there want to hear
Howard and crew simply adapt John's songs into a decent but rather
generic underscore, steer clear. That said, about nine minutes of that
score is quite easy on the ears, the "Dandelions" suite a strong
addition to any collection of lightly romantic movie music.
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The insert includes extensive credits and lyrics to the two new songs, but
no extra information about the score or film. Inserting the CD into a computer will
yield a link to a location at Disney's website with additional consumer-grade material.