Filmtracks Traffic Rank: #935
Written 1/16/12
Invert Colors
Buy it... if you appreciated Michael Giacchino's workmanlike
approach to the third film in this franchise and are prepared for a
wilder ethnic ride with even better interpolations of Lalo Schifrin's
original main theme.
Avoid it... if you prefer Giacchino to really take this series'
music in a meaningful new direction or if, as in many cases before, you
wish to hear his work recorded and mixed in anything livelier than the
incredibly dry, flat, and dull manner that often sucks the life out of
his music.
 |
| Giacchino |
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol: (Michael
Giacchino) The franchise of Mission: Impossible movies has defied
the laws of Hollywood physics by not only remaining viable with the same
primary star for so long, but actually accumulating critical acclaim and
box office success as it rolled through its fourth entry in 2011. Led
once again by Tom Cruise in the roles of star and producer, Mission:
Impossible - Ghost Protocol represents the first live-action movie
by successful animation director Brad Bird. Its plot takes agent Ethan
Hunt and his IMF colleagues on a long journey around the word to stop a
former Russian nuclear strategist from acquiring the launch codes and
technical capacity to instigate a nuclear attack on the United States as
part of his effort to use mutually assured nuclear annihilation as a way
to cleanse the gene pool. He must have spent a few hours in a rural
American Wal-Mart. While on the trail of this malcontent, Hunt and his
team escape massive explosions at the Kremlin, dizzying heights at the
world's tallest building in Dubai, and the technological nightmare of
Mumbai, the best of these exploits shot in IMAX rather than 3D
capabilities as per the director's wishes to accentuate the immensity of
the shoots. The film blasted past the performance of Mission:
Impossible III in 2006 in the process of dominating the worldwide
box office at the end of 2011 and start of 2012, surprisingly accruing
over half a billion dollars in grosses. Also in the favor of Mission:
Impossible - Ghost Protocol is some much-needed continuity in its
musical style. For the first two films, the franchise employed Alan
Silvestri (who was fired), Danny Elfman, and Hans Zimmer (and his team
of assistants) to adapt Lalo Schifrin's famous thematic identities from
the original television series. With the arrival of J.J. Abrams to the
concept for the 2006 entry, along came Michael Giacchino, Mission:
Impossible III his first major foray into summer blockbusters. His
score was functionally workmanlike, struggling at times to connect but
succeeding in returning the style of Schifrin's music to the forefront.
The composer's reprise of those efforts for Mission: Impossible -
Ghost Protocol is in part due to Abrams' continued involvement as
producer but also because of a prior successful collaboration with Bird
for his well respected animated ventures. Giacchino continues to explore
some of the ideas he conjured for the third film, including the same
general style of jazzy and technological action with a hint of
yesteryear from percussion and electric bass, but this assignment
required the composer to jump through several ethnic hoops along the way
as well. Enthusiasts of Schifrin's original material will have plenty to
salivate over as well.
For the generic action sequences devised for the story
of
Ghost Protocol, Giacchino responds with orchestral music
similar to his other franchise entry, but with perhaps a few more of the
ostinatos that Zimmer and John Powell have forced upon any chase
sequence in a Hollywood movie. As a nod to Schifrin, many of these
sequences feature retro percussion at the forefront of the mix that may
be obnoxious for some listeners. Loyalty to Schifrin's main franchise
theme was a primary concern for Giacchino, the majority of his cues
making at least some incorporation of the progressions, some of which
quite creative. Two full-blooded expressions of the theme in its
original glory are presented on album, too, "Light the Fuse" containing
the most satisfying, jazzy interpolation of the idea since Elfman's
entry. Giacchino also revisits some of his motifs from his previous
score, allowing the listening experience to unwind with a lengthy and
lovely extension of his theme for Hunt and his wife (which still sounds
like an idea straight from his "Lost" television series scores) in
"Putting the Miss in Mission." The other motifs in
Ghost Protocol
are all seemingly adapted into or built upon four-note phrases, perhaps
a nod to this movie's position in the franchise. While these identities
do begin to take hold in the latter half of the film, the Schifrin theme
really carries the identity of the entire score. The villain is treated
to an unfortunately meager motif that attempts to instill menace but
rather underplays the character. That's a bit strange considering the
fact that Giacchino went truly overboard when addressing the musical
style of each locale in the plot. The Russian sequence ("Kremlin With
Anticipation" and "From Russia With Shove") receives token male chorus
that's not as blatantly silly as the Prokofiev use by James Horner in
Red Heat, but the placement here is just as artificial. Equally
ridiculous is the Arabic slant in "A Man, A Plan, A Code, Dubai," though
at least Giacchino whips out some full-ensemble melodic grace in his
mutation of the Schifrin theme for this style. More interesting is the
source-like music for the Indian locations, "Mood India" once again
taking Schifrin in bizarre directions but at least building into several
minutes of super cool adaptations. Less palatable is "Mumbai's the
Word," which will be a little too much Bollywood for most Giacchino
collectors, the opening of that cue a humorous merging of Mychael Danna
and A.R. Rahman. The rest of the score is less flashy, but like its
predecessor, it gets the job done. A definite detraction from this
soundtrack is its totally deflating mix. Giacchino scores all are among
the driest, flattest, and dullest currently recorded and released on
album, but
Ghost Protocol is so muted at times that it seems like
it's practically in monaural sound. The completely dead mix continues to
diminish even Giacchino's liveliest works.
*** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
Bias Check:
For Michael Giacchino reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.48
(in 44 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.21
(in 23,643 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
|
