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| Horner |
The Legend of Zorro: (James Horner) When the legend
of Zorro first made its appearance on the modern big screens, it swashed
and buckled its way above and beyond even the old Tyrone Power
adaptation of the California hero. Catching many viewers by surprise,
The Mask of Zorro introduced Catherine Zeta-Jones to the masses,
re-launched Antonio Banderas' career, revived interest in the character,
and even provided a unique entry in the books of then red-hot composer
James Horner. Back to direct the sequel is Martin Campbell, and with
Banderas, Zeta-Jones, Horner, and other crew returning for another
adventure,
The Legend of Zorro rode into theatres with high
expectations. A poor script has proven to be a foe that even Zorro
cannot defeat, and amid stale reviews and cries of rehash, the sequel
hasn't resurrected the same lofty appeal as the original. For James
Horner,
The Mask of Zorro was a pivotal entry in his career, for
it came on the heels of
Titanic, a score that forever polarized
most of the remaining film music collectors who had not already labeled
Horner as genius or hack. Without a doubt,
The Mask of Zorro gave
Horner the opportunity to carry all of his familiar instrumentation into
a genre that has been sadly neglected by Hollywood blockbusters in the
modern era: historic Hispanic adventure. With wild acoustic guitars,
castanets, and foot tapping, Horner had created a score that not only
differed from the spirit and sound of anything he had produced in his
career, but was also unique in the scope of all modern Hollywood
composing. While
The Legend of Zorro has much inspiration taken
from the original success, a more interesting trend that Horner is
showing in late 2005 reveals that his music for
Flightplan might
actually have just as much of an effect on
The Legend of
Zorro.
A casual listener might parse through the music for
The Legend of Zorro and simply qualify it with more of the
"rehash" labels applied to the film itself. But Horner's score for
Flightplan displayed an exemplary level of density that the
composer has carried over to
The Legend of Zorro, and therein
lies the primary difference between the two Zorro scores. The original
was a plain and simple action score laced with the accents of Hispanic
instrumentation, rhythms, and stereotypical theme progressions for
Mexico. With convincing fashion,
The Legend of Zorro is a far
more complex variation on the same basic structure, resulting in a more
frenetic work with interesting interpretations of Horner's previous
themes for the characters. He doesn't really make an attempt to provide
new thematic representation for the fresh villain of the film, or even
for the newly annexed state of California itself, but instead he draws
his inspiration on countless variations on the previous themes. This
statement alone will be the "live or die" qualifier for you regarding
The Legend of Zorro; quite simply, if you enjoyed the first
score, then
The Legend of Zorro is going to be any extremely
raucous and invigorating listening experience in and outside of the
film. There are countless performances of the Zorro theme itself (heard
over the titles), the love theme (translated into the song in the first
film), and the horseback action theme. Not only do you receive generous
treatment of all these themes (their eruptions and crescendos highlight
every single cue here), but Horner heightens the enjoyment by cranking
up the density of each performance with brilliant harmony in
counterpoint. Because the underlying chord progressions of the Zorro and
love themes are very similar, Horner presents both simultaneously
several times, often with stunning results. The culmination of this
technique is heard between minutes 3:00 and 5:00 in the lengthy climax
cue, "The Train," in which Horner not only maintains both themes
simultaneously for an extended time, but he does so as he increases the
rate of the accompanying snare to represent the puffing of the train in
the film.
Even if the loyal, yet far more highly developed
interpretations of these themes don't grab your attention, then the
overwhelming vibrance of the instrumentation and performance definitely
will. The increase in density also applies to the extremely active
acoustic guitars, castanets, and foot tapping sound effects throughout
the entire score. Every minute of this score has the Latin flavour
inserted with remarkable ease and energy; the wild guitars especially
never seem to become tiresome, nor does Horner's snapping rhythms under
trumpet serenades or the occasional blasts of a distant shakuhachi
flute. And the only reason he seems to have been able to pull this off
is because every section of the orchestra is seemingly doing something
interesting in every major piece, adding a dimension of enthusiasm that
elevates
The Legend of Zorro above even the original. Horner
throws in some exotic spices along the ride beyond even that, featuring
the brass-slurring effect from Jerry Goldsmith's
The Shadow in
"The Cortez Ranch," a whining violin for comedy in "Jailbreak," and a
minute or so of rapid brass blasts and string pulsation at the end of
"The Train" that will make you swear that John Williams'
Revenge of
the Sith score was playing. When you put all of this together with a
crisp recording quality and the loyal placement of themes from the first
film,
The Legend of Zorro is one of the most satisfying sequel
scores to come around in a long time. Like the original, the strong
critics of Horner will have difficulty pointing to the stereotypes of
Horner's other works; there is no four-note motif for "evil" and no
piano crashing for "suspense." He does, however, interpret his usual
finale chord progression at the end of the score, with the rising notes
famous in the finales of
Star Trek and
The Rocketeer now
whipped into a frenzy of guitars and tapping. True, it's a Hornerism,
but like everything in
The Legend of Zorro, he's had a whole lot
of fun rearranging everything into a more complicated, but still
harmonious package. Given the rhythmic appeal of the genre and the
quality of Horner's original composition,
The Legend of Zorro not
only surpasses
The Mask of Zorro, but is Horner's most impressive
and downright infectious score since that original. Crank up the volume
on this one!
***** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
| Bias Check: |
For James Horner reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.15
(in 108 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.23
(in 203,344 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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The insert includes a full list of performers but no extra information about the score or film.
