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| Newman |
Meet the Fockers: (Randy Newman) As an overdue
follow-up to the 2000 hit comedy
Meet the Parents, Jay Roach's
2004 entry,
Meet the Fockers, extends the characters from the
first film into the realm of Greg Focker's (Ben Stiller's) parents for
even more complicated fun. The entire film exists only to analyze what
dysfunctional interactions happen when you put a set of highly
controlling and tense parents at one side of the table and an extremely
relaxed set on the other. Despite a cast of extremely powerful celebrity
names, critical consensus on
Meet the Fockers seemingly dwelled
upon a flat lack of energy in the film, pointing to substandard writing
as perhaps the primary culprit. But that certainly did not keep
audiences away from the sequel, with several weeks at the #1 position in
box office earning
Meet the Fockers fiscal success at the very
least and guaranteeing future viability for the franchise. The original
film in 2000 featured a Randy Newman score and a few songs performed by
the modern jazz singer himself. At the time, Newman was venturing
regularly into the animated children's film domain, a place in which his
lazy, upbeat vocals serve a very noble purpose. After wearing his
welcome in that genre a tad thin by 2003, Newman provided a refreshingly
different score (compared to his usual comedy standard) for
Seabisquit. In a journey down memory lane, though,
Meet the
Fockers gave Newman the opportunity to slide right back into
ever-familiar territory, with the filmmakers apparently deciding that
the sequel required music nearly identical to what Newman had provided
for the first film. So static is the personality of these scores that
replacement composer Stephen Trask was specifically asked to ape an
identical sound for 2010's
Little Fockers (yielding predictably
streamlined results). Absent from the third film are the freshly minted
Newman songs appearing over the opening and closing credits of
Meet
the Fockers, however. Newman's parody-level score material reflects
the same attitude as the songs in between, and despite the usual, upbeat
nature of the composer's involvement, the straight restocking of music
from the first film to the second may be one reason why critics didn't
find
Meet the Fockers to be as novel in its execution.
Nothing particularly unique can be described in the
characteristics of Newman's two songs for
Meet the Fockers. The
duo of "We're Gonna Get Married" (over the opening titles) and "Crazy
'Bout My Baby" (over the closing credits) is a bit more rock-inspired
than most of Newman's film songs, but you nevertheless get the feeling
that you've heard both these songs in no less than five movies in the
surrounding years. He varies his tone, his lyrics, and his structures so
little that you begin to wonder if he infringes upon his own copyrights
at times; the songs in
Meet the Fockers could have functioned
just as well in
A Bug's Life or
Monsters Inc., and for
someone who has heard all of these fluffy songs and scores countless
times, Newman's voice at its saturation point may start to give a person
violent thoughts. If not irritating, these songs at the very least will
be boring to many listeners, and Newman, despite the success he's had in
the past with his niche, has to come up with a new twist, a new set of
rhythms, or vastly different instrumentation to keep himself viable in
these situations. His typical, nifty little female vocals repeating his
lyrics or "eeewing and ahhhing" behind him are the real kicker this
time. The underscore does its best to elevate the comedy of the story by
playing upon the emotional swings of the picture. With a few tepid
opening tracks featuring plucky rhythms that wouldn't be foreign to an
equivalent Rachel Portman score, the album would seem hopeless at first,
but in Newman's latter cues, he begins to inject some much-needed parody
personality into the work. An ambitious pirate-inspired brass theme in
"Meet the Fockers" yields to a foreboding and militaristic
Godfather spin-off in "Suspicious Mind." A touch of Hispanic
flavor leaks into the score in "The Shot" and one very strong orchestral
outburst steals the final score cue, "Here's My Plan." On the whole, the
Newman underscore material constitutes about 20 minutes on album.
Released by Varèse Sarabande, the
Meet the Fockers product
is nearly identical in structure to Dreamworks' album for
Meet the
Parents, with the Newman songs followed by score and several
unrelated rock songs appearing at the end. The non-Newman songs on this
album reflect the laid-back attitude of the Focker family quite well.
Overall, Newman's underscore shines through at times despite its
predictable parody methods, but the man simply has to diversify himself
in his own vocal department. The same old song over and over again isn't
making as many people smile anymore.
** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
| Bias Check: |
For Randy Newman reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.15
(in 20 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.11
(in 22,943 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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The insert includes a list of performers but no extra information
about the score or film.
