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Review of Mission to Mars (Ennio Morricone)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you are attracted to strange and unusual experiments
of music for the wonders of space, even if they don't seem to make any
sense in context.
Avoid it... if you've always squirmed in your seat at old theme park space exploration rides because of their badly dated, 1960's style of cheesy soundtracks.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Mission to Mars: (Ennio Morricone) Director Brian
De Palma must have thought that he had a definite winner with Mission
to Mars. How he could have screwed it up so badly, in every element
of production, is the most astounding aspect of the finished film.
Relentlessly destroyed by critics and insulted in every conceivable
fashion, Mission to Mars is a reliable example of how not to
treat a promising concept for a plot outline. Humanity ventures to Mars
for the first time in 2020, and when the first mission goes horribly
wrong on the red planet, a rescue mission has to be attempted. By the
time the CGI aliens make themselves seen and the film answers our
questions about the origins of humanity, Mission to Mars is
almost laughable. Aside from terrible acting, questionable sound
effects, and pacing in the story that will put some viewers to sleep,
the cerebral nature of the script and its lofty tone of dialogue, as
well as interminable sequences that take up far too much of the film,
are the doom of Mission to Mars. Also highly controversial is the
score by De Palma collaborator Ennio Morricone, who approached the film
with a viewpoint that remains murky to this day. Certainly, the film
didn't have room for a space opera score in a John Williams mould. Nor
could it utilize the kind of straightforward, lyrical and romantic music
that Morricone often provided the mass of European films that have
defined his career. Mission to Mars debuted in the same year was
the equally ridiculed Red Planet, for which composer Graeme
Revell wrote an odd, but highly stylish combination of hard electronics
and operative vocals. On the surface, it would seem that Morricone
approached Mission to Mars with an equal mind for the different,
choosing to take a chance on blurring the lines between his own style of
atmospheric contemplation while also inserting dissonant choral lines
and often bizarre tributes to synthesized sounds from decades past. The
score, in its sum, sounds very much like something you heard in a space
exhibit at a theme park in the 1960's (or perhaps early 70's). Its
genuine, but restrained sense of wonder is conveyed by extremely smooth
lines of melody that are intentionally jarred by awkward, dissonant
counterpoint and instrumentation that reminds of cheap, 60's fantasy
scores. Unfortunately, space travel has rarely been so dull.
With that premise set, it should be mentioned that Mission to Mars is a "love it or hate it" kind of score, dividing even Morricone's most ardent fans. Either you can buy into the premise that Morricone was trying to establish or you can reject it as being yet another misguided element of a completely untethered production. Despite its admirable traits, it's difficult not to become irritated with Morricone's extremely dated sound for the movie. The light touch to his suite-like cues of thematic development for the beginning and end of the film is aided by instrumental accents that work in some cases (such as the electric guitar in "A Heart Beats in Space" to revive a slight Western frontier feeling) and fail badly in others (including most of the synthetic elements, led by obnoxious electronic oboe and harpsichord). The pacing of these cues conveys no sense of weight or importance; Morricone's extremely frail thematic development in the first three cues on album gives you the sense that space travel and the discovery of alien life is a breezy trifle that should lightly occupy the fancy of people without any hysteria or wonder. The lack of awe is the single killing element in this score. Morricone tries so hard to provide a hazy, other-worldly set of sounds in his pleasant themes and restrained performances that he completely sucks all life out of the event. A few singularly awful (and simply unlistenable) cues are also painful to the ears. First, "And Afterwards?" is a terrible recapitulation of the sounds of 1960's sci-fi trash (even more dated than Leonard Rosenman's Fantastic Voyage), and the lengthy "Towards the Unknown," with its electric bass and organ, is insufferably tedious. Also out of place, interestingly, is "Where?," which suddenly blasts the orchestral majesty of Bill Conti's The Right Stuff at you with no context. Finally, "Sacrifice of a Hero" alternates between the heroic tones of James Horner's Apollo 13 and bursts of brass and sound effect dissonance. The suspense in "An Unexpected Sunrise" is a tired imitation of Bernard Herrmann staples. Overall, Mission to Mars is such a disaster all around that you have to forgive Morricone for not offering music with any sense of direction. On album, it's frightfully disjointed and fails to engage the listener. It lacks new innovation, enthusiasm, and, most importantly, gravity. **
TRACK LISTINGS:
Total Time: 62:22
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert includes no extra information about the score or film.
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