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Review of Gnomeo & Juliet (Elton John/James Newton Howard/Chris Bacon)

FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:

Buy it... if you're an avid Elton John enthusiast and seek two new songs and a selection of four score tracks that, at least in two of them, provide very alluring instrumental versions of his most famous melodies.

Avoid it... if you expect to hear the film version of "Hello Hello" with Lady Gaga or anything beyond what's described above, because the album offers very little for film score collectors or those seeking an abundance of new material from John.

FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:

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.  ***

TRACK LISTINGS:

Total Time: 60:24

• 1. Hello Hello - performed by Elton John (3:44) • 2. Crocodile Rock - performed by Nelly Furtado and Elton John (3:26) • 3. Saturday Night's Alright (For Fighting) - performed by Elton John (4:54) • 4. Don't Go Breaking My Heart - performed by Elton John (4:33) • 5. Love Builds a Garden - performed by Elton John (3:34) • 6. Your Song - performed by Elton John (4:01) • 7. Rocket Man (I Think It's Going to Be a Long, Long Time) - performed by Elton John (4:42) • 8. Tiny Dancer - performed by Elton John (6:14) • 9. Bennie and the Jets - performed by Elton John (5:20) • 10. Gnomeo and Juliet* (4:22) • 11. Dandelions* (4:24) • 12. Bennie and the Bunnies* (2:52) • 13. Terrafirminator* (5:24) • 14. The Tiki Tiki Tiki Room - performed by Wally Boag, Fulton Burley, Thurl Ravenscroft, and the Mellomen (2:37)

NOTES & QUOTES:

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.

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