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Madagascar
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Composed by:
Hans ZimmerRyeland Allison James Dooley James S. Levine Heitor Pereira
Conducted by:
Gavin Greenaway
Nick Ingram
Produced by:
Melissa Muik
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LABEL & RELEASE DATE
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ALBUM AVAILABILITY
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Regular U.S. release.
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AWARDS
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None.
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ALSO SEE
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Buy it... if you're one of those little kids entranced by the movie
and want to buy all the stuffed animals, fast-food restaurant toys,
coloring books, and, of course, music associated with the film.
Avoid it... if you collect either original score or song
compilation soundtrack albums, because this insulting collection is
incomprehensibly assembled into an absolute mess of a presentation.
BUY IT
 | | Zimmer |
Madagascar: (Hans Zimmer/Various) From the writer
and director of Antz and The Ren & Stimpy Show comes
Madagascar, the 2005 production from the PDI/DreamWorks studio
that had just brought the two initial, extremely popular Shrek
movies to the big screen. The short animated film has all the glitz and
visual attraction for kids, and while its premise is rich with promise,
the execution of the story seems to have gone awry in critics' views. A
giraffe, lion, hippo, and zebra live the pampered life in New York
City's Central Zoo and, mostly featuring recognizably famous voices,
their personalities carry them on a journey that involves an escape from
the zoo and consequent travel back to the wild. When their transport
becomes lost at sea off the large East-African island nation of
Madagascar, the animals have to cope with real life on the island.
Somewhere at this point, the story loses all cohesion and this plot
summary ends. It's frightening to imagine that it actually spawned a
sequel film, speaking once again to the stupidity of the general public.
As a purely slapstick-style, lowest-common-denominator comedy,
Madagascar relies heavily on its soundtrack to accentuate its
sense of humor. This "music director" technique involved the
incorporation of well known songs of the 1960's and 1970's into the
picture (you've got to love the fact that studios sometimes go the less
expensive route of obtaining the rights to songs that no longer demand
top dollar for reuse) and, to a lesser extent, an original score. One of
the prevailing head-scratchers involving Madagascar is composer
Hans Zimmer's choice to leave the Ridley Scott mammoth Kingdom of
Heaven in favor of this Dreamworks project. Former collaborator
Harry Gregson-Williams, a composer coming dangerously close at the time
to surpassing Zimmer in overall quality of output, in turn took the leap
from Madagascar to Kingdom of Heaven with very impressive
results, despite Scott's butchering and replacing of the score in the
final film. Upon hearing Madagascar on album and pondering the
tepid critical response, Zimmer's choice is all the more confusing.
Perhaps there was some legal or technical reason for Zimmer to be stuck
with Madagascar instead, because you certainly can't hear the
validation in musical form on the abysmal album for the soundtrack.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the composer relied heavily upon his in-house
Media Ventures/Remote Control team of ghostwriters to handle the bulk of
duties on the assignment, perhaps allowing Zimmer an easy out but also
ensuring absolutely no coherent flow to the entirety of the score.
The collection of most obvious song placements from
Madagascar occupies over two thirds of the running time on the
album, and a fatal flaw is that the songs have absolutely nothing to do
with one another. Placing "I Like to Move It" next to the theme from
"Hawaii Five-0," "Chariots of Fire" (John Williams fans continue to
cringe) next to "Stayin' Alive," and what little frenetic score there is
next to Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World," is a recipe for
disaster. The songs are all overplayed, especially the Armstrong one,
and there was initially doubt that the collection would even suffice to
drive album sales. Despite crediting Hans Zimmer first on the packaging
for the soundtrack, the composer's contribution on that album amounts to
five minutes of actual original material. Of those minutes, less than
two offer his solo work. The opening song, "Best Friends," is a catchy
original tune penned by Zimmer and his hoard of ghostwriters. It
wouldn't be so irritating if the theme didn't sound so much like the
main Sesame Street song. The assistants continue to contribute in the
marginal score cues, with Jim Dooley providing a shameless rip-off of
high crime jazz staples (and Michael Giacchino's The Incredibles,
which had top of mind awareness at the time) in "Whacked Out
Conspiracy." The only solo Zimmer track is a frenetic little string cue,
"Zoosters Breakout," that builds up to the score's only statement of the
theme from the opening song, exuding the lightheartedness of Nine
Months throughout its length. Ironically, this "Zoosters Breakout"
theme is apparently the main identity of the franchise, recurring
several times in Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa rather than the
opening song's melody. In fact, the only redemption in any of this
original material comes when Zimmer's theme is expanded upon with lovely
woodwinds in the sequel's opening cue, "Once Upon a Time in Africa." The
best track on the Madagascar album is "Born Free," which,
contrary to the packaging, is not written by Zimmer. His adaptation of
the famous 1964 Academy Award-winning John Barry theme accompanies a
fantasy sequence in the film, and to hear the slower paces of Barry's
great theme in the middle of all this garbage is either a great relief
or just another parody insult. Heitor Pereira's "The Foosa Attack" is a
terrible drum loop nightmare for 30 seconds before the final score cue,
co-written by Zimmer and James S. Levine, attempts to insert some hip
70's spirit from "Stayin' Alive" into fragments of the "Zoosters
Breakout" theme. Overall, this album is an insufferable mess. The film's
running time indicates that there must be more score material by Zimmer
and his ghostwriters than just the ten minutes here. Not even the odd
selection of classic songs can save this one. As the knights say: Run
away! Run away! Run away!
* @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
| Bias Check: |
For Hans Zimmer reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 2.84
(in 121 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 2.96
(in 298,134 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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I do not cringe!
Captain Future - January 30, 2012, at 12:15 p.m. |
1 comment (1227 views) |
I love it
tess - April 11, 2006, at 8:47 p.m. |
1 comment (2615 views) |
Hibee Jibees Expand >>
Andrea - August 21, 2005, at 7:41 p.m. |
2 comments (4289 views)
Newest: March 6, 2006, at 12:01 p.m. by
Corey |
Total Time: 31:32
• 1. Best Friends* (2:24)
• 2. I Like to Move It - performed by Sacha Baron Cohen (3:51)
• 3. Hawaii Five-O - performed by The Ventures (1:49)
• 4. Boogie Wonderland - performed by Earth, Wind, and Fire (4:49)
• 5. Whacked Out Conspiracy** (2:16)
• 6. Chariots of Fire - performed by Vangelis (3:29)
• 7. Stayin' Alive - performed by Bee Gees (3:29)
• 8. Zoosters Breakout*** (1:39)
• 9. Born Free# (1:24)
• 10. The Foosa Attack## (0:37)
• 11. Beacon of Liberty### (2:09)
• 12. What a Wonderful World - performed by Louis Armstrong (2:16)
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* written by Hans Zimmer, Heitor Pereira, Ryeland Allison, and James S. Levine
** written by James Dooley
*** written by Hans Zimmer
# written by John Barry, adapted by Hans Zimmer
## written by Heitor Pereira
### written by Hans Zimmer and James S. Levine
The insert includes no extra information about the score or film.
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