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| Edelman |
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| Debney |
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor: (Randy
Edelman/John Debney) With the third installment of the Stephen Sommers
The Mummy trilogy in 2008, the helm was assumed by action veteran
Rob Cohen. Actor Brendan Fraser returned to his role once again as the
adventurer in the belated sequel, his prior costar, Rachel Weisz,
replaced after declining to return due to misgivings with the script.
This entry shifts focus to the history and mythology of China, the
contemporary setting of 1946 dealing with curses and resurrections that
bring the evil Dragon Emperor and the famed Terracotta Army to life to
reassert Chinese dominance. The gang of protagonists treks to the
fictional Shangri-La in the Himalayas and is joined by immortal
sorceresses, the heroics shifting to the adventurer's son in this story.
Jet Li largely wastes his performance as the villain, and
The Mummy:
Tomb of the Dragon Emperor was lambasted for its lifeless pacing,
poor digital effects, and tired characters. Grossing less than its
predecessors, Universal scrapped plans for a fourth film and instead
rebooted the franchise in 2017, though the underperformance of that film
led the studio to approach Frasier another time in 2021 for a possible
continuation of the Sommers storyline. That trilogy, along with its
spinoffs in
The Scorpion King and its endless sequels, never
featured any semblance of continuity in its music, different composers
lending their services to each film and none of the themes carrying over
from one score to the next. Still, film music collectors have
appreciated the quality of the music that's existed in these movies
anyway, the first two works by Jerry Goldsmith and Alan Silvestri in
particular remaining fan favorites. With Cohen's arrival meant that his
preferred composer, Randy Edelman, joined the team as well. While
Edelman has scored a number of action and fantasy films of blockbuster
status over the prior dozen years, he was never known for thriving in
the action realm. Comparing his adventure music to that of Goldsmith and
Silvestri, both of whom really excelled at generating fantastic material
for the preceding films, is perhaps unfair. Still, Edelman overachieved
in this assignment, writing music that is better than most listeners
might expect.
Edelman's output for
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon
Emperor does exhibit some of the lackluster qualities that hinder
the composer's other action scores, but he does offer up some fantastic
dramatic material anyway. He drops his synthetics for a truly organic
and ethnic powerhouse that may suffer from his tendency towards
extremely simplistic harmonies and orchestrations but still manages to
produce more than enough fantasy and adventure for the topic. In the
end, however, with a main theme that sounds like it belongs in a
children's movie, the studio believed Edelman's score to be one of the
reasons why the film wasn't performing well with test audiences.
Ultimate fix-it composer John Debney stepped in to write over half an
hour of replacement material and record it at a breakneck session just
prior to the film's release. Most of the largest action sequences in the
movie contain this Debney replacement music, and while the veteran
composer does fleetingly reference two of Edelman's themes, he largely
ignores the overall narrative that Edelman was attempting to develop and
addresses his scenes as standalone pieces. While there is undoubtedly
some impressive music from Debney in his hasty salvage effort, reminding
of the quality of
The Scorpion King at times, his contributions
are mostly anonymous and fail to capture the same ethnic spirit that
embodies Edelman's work. The resulting combination score is adequate but
suffers from flow issues, and as standalone listening experiences,
Edelman's work remains superior. He was not a stranger to Chinese
specialty instrumentation in his career, and he applied four specialty
performers to the ensemble alongside the London Symphony Orchestra, with
choral shades occasionally making a splash. The score represented
Edelman's final major hurrah in the mainstream of Hollywood, the
replacement of much of his music a sting on his way out the door. The
score for
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor might be
considered among the composer's top achievements if not for a main theme
that sounds completely out of place, for the remainder of his creation
is pleasantly robust and appropriately colored. He even supplies a
source ballad, "My Sweet Eternal Love," for the finale of the movie that
is very well conceived and adapted into several places in the
score.
Aside from some synthetic elements in "Shielding a Son,"
Edelman's approach to
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
avoids obvious electronic embellishment, a rarity for the composer. The
Chinese specialty instrumentation is led by an erhu and is layered
tastefully throughout. The choir is rarely employed, which is
disappointing, because it's great when there. There are few diversions
from the focused style of Edelman's music, source-like classicism with a
harpsichord in "Memories, Retirement and Dinner" one exception. The
orchestral depth is considerable in the recording, even if it's rather
simplistically written for. The thematic diversity of the score consists
of a sonic battle between the main theme for the leads and a legacy
theme for the Yang character and others who wish to restore evil. A
mystical Shangri-La theme is a welcome visitor, and Edelman cannot
resist writing a keyboard-based idea for the heroic family. The main
theme is a spritely and cheery fanfare, completely inappropriate for the
movie but becoming somewhat endearing by the time it parades through the
flashy end title sequence. Its simplistic harmonies and rendering are
summarized in all of "A Call to Adventure," entering the score proper
with a brief burst at 0:50 into "Reading of the Scrolls." Its suite-like
format repeats in the first minute of "Crash and Burn" and turns
suspenseful later in that cue. The optimistic cheer returns at 1:44 into
"A New Assignment" and enjoys extra zeal at the outset of "Yang Follows
the O'Connells." A continuation of this mode at 2:34 into "Shanghai
Chase" strays into ridiculousness with its constantly crashing cymbals.
It lightly prances on flute and clarinet in the fluffy "Rick's Long
Rod," enters with brief exuberance at 1:29 into "New Year's Betrayal,"
and opens "2nd Century B.C." with a distant sense of wonder. Edelman
litters the idea throughout "Rick and Evy in Battle" without much flow
and allows it to become engrained with Chinese spirit at the start of
"Return of the Dragon" before the tension and subsequent relief for the
theme in the choral start of "Finale" yields to its full form at 0:58
for the end credits. This theme struggles to fit well with the remaining
identities, all of which mingle better with one another as they define
the Chinese elements of the story. The best among these is the legacy
theme for Yang that raises occasional memories of Goldsmith's boldest
action mode when conveyed with force.
The legacy theme in
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon
Emperor has basic and repetitive phrasing but retains strength and
allure throughout, switching between fantasy, drama, and action with
ease. It is defined well during all of "Silently Yearning for
Centuries," developing from cello to brass and offering the song's
melody as an interlude at 1:41. The theme explodes at 0:19 into "The
Reign of Terror" in intense, brassy battle mode but reverts to tender
thought to open "Reading of the Scrolls," even shifting into the major
key for a while. It thumps with menace in the middle of "A New
Assignment" and lets rip with Goldsmith-like brass and percussion 0:44
into "Yang Follows the O'Connells." Stinger alerts using the theme early
in "Shanghai Chase" prove its malleability. The theme dominates "Ancient
China" as a reprise of "Silently Yearning for Centuries," the song
melody returning at 1:40. Stunted fragments haunt "Entering the Tomb,"
and a militarized version is unleashed in "The Emperor Versus Zi Yuan."
The legacy theme turns intimate and even a touch comedic early in "Love
in the Himalayas," toned back on sorrowful cellos at the start of
"Heartbreak" before shifting to propulsive snare attitude. The theme's
last major usage comes in the stoic brass renditions in the middle of
"Return of the Dragon." The mystical Shangri-La theme offers flowing
romanticism in the score, introduced at the start of "Open Wound" and
allowing a snippet of the song melody at 0:33 before a brief major
performance at 1:21. It emerges at the two-minute mark in "The Reign of
Terror" and reveals itself fully at 2:22. The theme reappears in the
middle of "Reading of the Scrolls" in lighter shades, offering the song
melody for a moment as well. It returns at 1:31 into "Yang Follows the
O'Connells" and in a variant of distinction at the outset of "New Year's
Betrayal." Edelman's family theme is a typically soft keyboarded
rendering performed by the composer himself. It debuts at 0:57 into "A
Family Presses Close" after a performance of the song melody and returns
at 1:00 into "Love in the Himalayas" and opens "A Warm Rooftop." Don't
look for much variance in this theme's usage, its evolution static as is
standard for the composer's more contemporary character identities. A
badly underutilized motif for the Lin character is revealed in "Alex and
Lin," and this pretty but simplistic idea carries over to the start of
"The Museum Becomes Alive!" with restraint but is otherwise
neglected.
On the whole, Edelman's work for
The Mummy: Tomb of
the Dragon Emperor is certainly not without flaw, but it stands as
one of the composer's most majestic career achievements even if the main
theme is a bit cheesy. Debney's 32 minutes of music is largely anonymous
within his career, sometimes using odd sound effects mixed with the Los
Angeles performers and supplying his own choral overlays as necessary.
The sometimes sparse tone of his recording has the general sound of
Christopher Lennertz action material of the era. Debney wrote music for
over a dozen scenes, "Main Title Ride" skirting Edelman's legacy theme
in its action and "Compass/Lin Attacks Alex" containing more hyperactive
but obnoxious variants on the same ideas. The two "Chariot Chase" cues
use that legacy theme without the first note in its excitement, but
Debney does eventually add that first note back in for one sequence. The
lesser "Chariot Aftermath" hints at Edelman's main theme in minor mode,
while "Trek into the Mountains" finally references the legacy theme
obviously and with force. Sadly, though, the fantasy in "Shangri-La
Revealed" fails to use Edelman's theme for any good reason. The unique
"Yeti to the Rescue" is highly obnoxious in its brass usage, but at
least it's memorable compared to the largely anonymous action with no
thematic advancement in "Enter the Emperor/The Icicles." Debney's
"Family Hug" has no warmth or purpose, a purely ambient cue with vague
keyboarding. Only in the last few cues does Debney develop his own
action theme, "Kick Butt Terra Cotta" firming up this motif in its
string action and "Emperor Enters the Cave" returning to that material
in huge choral fashion. The conclusive "Rick and the Emperor
Battle/Finale" is fairly generic but does reference the main Edelman
theme for a specific point of reference in the narrative. Some of
Debney's music is dropped into the end title scroll as well. While his
contributions to the film are generally praised due to a few monumental
action highlights, his music is often busier but not necessarily better
than Edelman's alternatives. The film likely would have sufficed with
the first composer's music. A generous 77 minutes of Edelman's score was
released on a commercial album at the time of the movie's release, and
Debney's 32 minutes of replacement music was teased online in
promotional form by the composer and was widely bootlegged by fans
thereafter. An official combination album with both composers' work is
definitely merited here, but don't be surprised if it's Edelman's score
that you find yourself revisiting rather than Debney's. The film
represented a valiant conclusion to Edelman's mainstream career.
@Amazon.com: CD or
Download
- Music as Written by Randy Edelman for the Film: ****
- Music as Written by John Debney for the Film: ***
- Overall: ****
| Bias Check: |
For Randy Edelman reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.05
(in 20 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.15
(in 29,224 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
|
The insert of the Varèse Sarabande album with Edelman's score includes
no extra information about the score or film. There exists no official packaging for
the Debney bootlegs or their original promotional form.
