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Review of The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (Randy Edelman/John Debney)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... for Randy Edelman's occasionally cheesy but surprisingly
overachieving score, an expansive and ethnically smart conclusion to the
composer's mainstream career.
Avoid it... on the bootlegs of John Debney's replacement material if you expect it to accomplish more than simply generate more complicated noise than Edelman could muster.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
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.
TRACK LISTINGS:
Edelman Album:
Total Time: 77:28
* Performed by Helen Feng Debney Bootlegs: Total Time: 32:19
NOTES & QUOTES:
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.
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The reviews and other textual content contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Christian Clemmensen at Filmtracks Publications. All artwork and sound clips from The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor are Copyright © 2008, Varèse Sarabande (Edelman), Bootleg (Debney) and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 2/27/22 (and not updated significantly since). |
