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(8.99)

The same questions about authenticity that plague the film abound when considering the score, which is a highly unoriginal piecing together of various existing sources with doses of prior Zimmer mannerisms slathered on the parts not explicitly emulating the composer's own personal hero, Ennio Morricone, as well as Elmer Bernstein, Jerome Moross, and others. It's truly challenging to find originality in Zimmer's approach to the production of this score, and one has to wonder if time constraints played a role in this haphazard collection of ideas. By no means is The Lone Ranger the absolute stylistic mess that was Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, though you still get the sense here that there are too many cooks in the kitchen. The ensemble is better rounded in its representation of the recording mix, though Zimmer's taste for deep bass does continue to weight heavily on much of the work despite better enunciation of treble elements. Electronics are held to an outward minimum aside from the accentuation of the bass realm that Zimmer insists upon. Some honky tonk piano, guitar, and fiddle work is expected, as is the composer's predictable referencing of spaghetti Western techniques with a modern flair, akin to Marco Beltrami's 3:10 to Yuma. While Zimmer claims to have always wanted to write a Western action score, however, it's surprising to hear so few truly modernized genre mannerisms in a cool and affable package in The Lone Ranger, the cue "Ride" the only real exposition of such tribute-like genre music. Rather than taking this score down the purely Western route, the composer has clearly armed his ghostwriters with concepts that are mired in his own past, and some of the re-applications of this material are nonsensical. The heroic and action sensibilities are informed by the Pirates of the Caribbean scores and, oddly enough, Angels & Demons. The identity for Tonto is a totally bizarre mixture of Rango and Sherlock Holmes, with an unexplained infusion of Irish spirit as well. The traditional Irish folk song "After the Battle of Aughrim," arranged by Zimmer and performer Ann Marie Calhoun, is heard for the character in the deceptively named cue "Silver." Somewhere in between the realm of Zimmer power anthems and his underdeveloped sense of Americana exists the theme for John Reid, heard in pleasantly extended though somewhat anonymous form in "Home." He cannot escape his penchant for neoclassical progressions even here, several cues in the score emulating his prior use of them almost verbatim.

The stomping action material in The Lone Ranger is highlighted by "The Railroad Waits for No One," an entertaining though simplistic regurgitation. The suspense music in "You've Looked Better" and "You're Just a Man in a Mask" relies upon dissonant textures and fails to engage. The most inexplicable moment in the score is "For God and for Country," an important cue that completely dismisses the Native American element with a single cry before launching into chanting choral attack music more suitable for a modern setting. What was Zimmer and his crew thinking here? Would it have been too difficult to adapt Tonto's style into some form of a Comanche war theme? That cue, while enjoyable in parts outside of the picture, is a monumentally wasted opportunity. All of these moments in the score are completely overshadowed by the outside insertions, including the Irish folk tune. Along with it are compositions by Brian Satterwhite, the three songs by White, and a slew of other licensed usages. And then there's the extensive work by Geoff Zanelli, a veteran Zimmer ghostwriter responsible in this case for adapting "Battle Hymn of the Republic," "Stars and Stripes Forever," "The Star Spangled Banner," "Marse Henry March," and Gioachino Rossini's "William Tell Overture" into the film. What Zanelli managed to accomplish with the "William Tell Overture" in "Finale" is truly remarkable and very easily the highlight of the score. Whereas the rest of the score alternates between tired recapitulations of Zimmer's past and senseless ethnic attributions, Zanelli adapts the "Overture," which was the theme song for the famed television show, into an incredible action piece complete with highly intelligent manipulations of Zimmer's themes into its formations. The passages from about 4:40 to 5:10 and 6:55 to 8:20, along with snippets in between, are nothing less than brilliant, and thankfully the recording is mixed without such a heavy-handed bass. This work is so damn pleasing in an intellectual way that it really does make the rest of the score seem like simple rehash, and one could easily wish that Zanelli had been allowed to write the entire score. While thematic integration throughout The Lone Ranger is decent, you still get a score of disparate pieces in the end, one with no narrative due to the composer's methodology. The absolutely botched ethnic side of the work, from the Tonto identity to the Comanche raid on the train, is so insultingly off-base that it's hard to appreciate even apart from the film. If not for Zanelli's "Finale," this is a two-star score that could function as a three-star listening experience on album for the easy flows of "Ride" and "Home." But Zanelli saves the day with his arrangements, supplementing the other ghostwriters' toil with enough smarts to save the whole.  ***   @Amazon.com: CD or Download

Bias Check:

For Hans Zimmer reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 2.94 (in 96 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 2.97 (in 275,228 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.

Total Time: 49:35