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| Silvestri |
The Mummy Returns: (Alan Silvestri) When 1999's
The Mummy surprised Universal and grossed $400 million worldwide,
the studio decided immediately to develop a franchise out of the
concept, assembling almost the entire cast and crew from the first film
for 2001's summer blockbuster,
The Mummy Returns. The only
problem with that idea was in the dryness of the well from which
inspiration was taken for its script. There simply existed nothing new
for
The Mummy Returns to add to an already spent equation, and
the insertion of a small role for wrestler Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson as
the Scorpion King was an obvious move to establish a connection for the
third film in the trilogy that indeed did come down the pipes not long
after. The same characters once again face off in ancient and 1930's
Egypt with the aid of curses and resurrections, their chemistry strained
by familiar suspense and action circumstances. The production values of
The Mummy Returns are undeniably improved over those in the first
film, but a sense of deja vu in the plot cripples the entire film. One
person who thought that the franchise was trash from the outset was
legendary composer Jerry Goldsmith, whose grandiose score for the 1999
film is revered by his collectors as a guilty pleasure at the least.
Goldsmith's public dismay with the fact that his career had diminished
to extent that it included films like
The Mummy obviously removed
him from consideration when it came time to score the sequel, this
despite the respect he had earned from Stephen Sommers. The director had
originally wanted Alan Silvestri to score his horror/adventure flick
Deep Sea Rising before Goldsmith stepped in for that
embarrassment, so he turned to Silvestri for this project instead. Fans
greeted the assignment with curiosity and some optimism; with his
previous two scores representing minimalism (
Cast Away) and
parody (
The Mexican) with decent results, some were skeptical
that Silvestri could pour on the orchestral might necessary for this
non-stop action thriller. But with Silvestri came an equally experienced
adventure scorer, a man who had impressed audiences through the years
with this highly functional and occasionally memorable action
material.
Along with the sequel film's attempt to be a cinematic
marvel with its improved special effects, the script has very few
moments of extended peace in its narrative. The challenge for Silvestri
was to produce almost two hours of unyielding action music heavy on
brass and chorus for
The Mummy Returns without allowing the music
to become a cliche of generic scores of the genre. The composer
ultimately succeeds in keeping the pace of the score moving without
allowing it to become too repetitious or missing opportunities for
valuable tonal statements of grandeur. Goldsmith's score for the
original film was highlighted by a handful of momentous bursts of
thematic material, though the vast majority of music from
The
Mummy blended together in the kind of anonymous fashion that
Goldsmith had tended to embrace in the last years of his career. Because
of Silvestri's basic approach of scoring each battle or chase with a
rhythmically and thematically melodramatic technique, Silvestri's music
is ultimately more enjoyable than that of Goldsmith in terms of quality
ruckus. Silvestri avoids the use of the orchestra as a mere sound
effect, as Goldsmith did, developing each cue into a substantially tonal
piece of music and causing
The Mummy Returns to be a more
listenable score when divorced from the visuals. As heard in the context
of the film, Silvestri's work does tend to be mixed so heavily that it
becomes wallpaper at times, and some listeners may find the same to be
true on album. Like its predecessor, this score is rooted in
stereotypical faux-Egyptian chord progressions and instrumentation. In
other words, Silvestri doesn't attempt to re-invent the wheel. Although
he uses a considerable amount of percussion for his music, it is easily
the brass section which dominates
The Mummy Returns. If an
adventure film calls for a score of enormous presence in the film (if
not for the mere fact that it has to compete with the sound effects),
there is no better method of success than hiring a large brass ensemble
to blast the score into relevance. In this case, the composer had all
the sections, including the chorus, recorded together as a single unit
on the stage, but for the action scenes aplenty, Silvestri sets up a
primary base of almost constant, rhythmic percussion (mainly in the form
of a variety of medium-range drums) and then layers the trombones,
trumpets, and French horns into lengthy performances of the thematic
ideas on top.
Stylistically, if you're allergic to cymbal rolls and
crashes, then watch out for the obviousness of
The Mummy Returns,
because there are countless synchronization points that Silvestri
accentuates with these metallic elements and others. The brass
performances are so blatantly heroic that they may remind some listeners
of the classic swashbuckling scores of the Golden Age or, more recently,
John Williams scores of the 1980's, with brief, pulsating blasts from
one brass group weaving in and out of triumphantly extended whole notes
on others. This could be the single brassiest score in the early 2000's,
and if you're a fan of explosive horn sequences, this is your dream come
true. On top of the constant level of noise, the full ensemble also
performs a variety of new themes that Silvestri created for the sequel.
The Goldsmith themes are not explicitly performed at any time, and this
choice was intentional. In many ways, this decision is a shame, because
Goldsmith nailed his themes even if his underscore was scattershot. His
Egyptian theme in particular, the one that opens
The Mummy in
"Imhotep," remains the most impressively powerful identity in the entire
franchise. That said, if you listen closely to the subtle counterpoint
in busy action sequences of the sequel effort, such as a few bars of
music two to three minutes into "Scorpion Shoes," you can hear
Goldsmith-influence phrasing that suggests some connections between the
scores, though they may also be purely coincidental. Silvestri adds
three new primary themes to the sequel score, each of them developed to
satisfaction. First is the new theme for Rick O'Connell and his heroic
deeds, brazenly blasting a trail in "Evy Kidnapped" and "My First Bus
Ride." This brass theme, usually aided by wild flute or piccolo figures
in their highest ranges, eventually dominates the late portions of the
score with its swashbuckling optimism. It's related to the old "B-rated"
sci-fi adventure themes of the early 1980's and is about as basic in
structure as one can get. Still, as a general-purpose adventure theme,
it gets the job done and will remind of the same spirit that made
Silvestri's
Back to the Future theme so adorable. The second
theme is the heavy-duty, Egyptian-flavored representation for the love
affair between the villains, with strings and woodwinds building to
exotic statements that mirror some of the tones heard early in David
Arnold's
Stargate. Listen for a particularly muscular rendition
of this idea at the end of "Train Chapter."
The final and most elusive theme of
The Mummy
Returns is a melodramatic, romantic identity for Rick and Evy that
is introduced in "Just an Oasis" and, despite a few flourishes on
strings later in the score, is somewhat short changed by the presence of
the other themes until really exposing its potential in "Come Back Evy"
and the suite, "The Mummy Returns." There are a few incidental subthemes
along the journey as well, including one for viola that grows into a
wondrous and magical variant on the idea for the villains and
accompanies curses and other fantasy elements of the film. The chorus
builds upon this mystique with enchanting presence at times, though its
chants never occupy very lengthy sequences of the score. During some
passages, they do remind of the primal presence in Silvestri's
Predator 2. All the ideas that Silvestri conjures are packed into
the frenetic and lengthy "The Mummy Returns," which serves as an
exceptionally strong editorial suite of themes from the score. The sound
quality of the Sinfonia of London Orchestra and Chorus, as recorded at
the resounding CTS Colosseum in England, is crisp and dynamic, with
enough reverb added back into the mix to maintain both the scope and
dynamic tone of the genre. In some moments, the oud and other exotic
accents get lost in the mix, but they can still be followed. The
original 2001 Decca album offers a phenomenal presentation of the score,
with almost seventy minutes of unadulterated Silvestri action providing
for an exhilarating and enjoyable hour of noisy fun. There does exist an
additional 45+ minutes of material missing from the album, including a
few notable fanfares and almost all the music from the last act of the
film (due to recording and mixing schedules lagging behind the album
master). These omissions were rectified by Intrada Records in 2018, when
the label released both this and Goldsmith's
The Mummy as
outstanding, expanded products. Like the preceding work, some of the
previously unreleased Silvestri cues are atmospheric and tend to slow
the flow of the listening experience significantly. The inclusion of the
source-like "Gong" for 18 seconds is amusing but could have been moved
to the end of the presentation. Still, the final twenty minutes of the
score is an essential addition for any enthusiast of this music,
especially with the love theme in "Wrong Girlfriend" and main heroic
theme in "Happy Ending." An extension of the Egyptian theme in ambitious
rhythmic mode occupies "The Mummy Returns - End Credits," offering more
of the flavor heard in the first minute of the formal suite.
The 2018 Intrada album for
The Mummy Returns is
an all-around more impressive expansion than the label's sibling release
for
The Mummy. After the nearly 110-minute score presentation and
the inclusion of the film's song (more on that later), Intrada offers
several notable alternative arrangements, some of which featured on the
Decca album but all of them testimony to the haphazard editing Silvestri
had to make to this work. Generally, outside of substantial
disappointment that Goldsmith's themes did not carry over to the sequel,
The Mummy Returns is a resounding success. In its consolidated
presentation, which can be smartly expanded using the Intrada product,
the score hits all the right crescendos and pauses just long enough from
the ruckus to allow you to come up for air. There are percussive,
hand-to-hand battle cues that will clang. There are male and female
choirs chanting along with marching armies of fighters. There are
spontaneously swelling moments of strings for vistas and emotional
interludes. And, most importantly, there are thematic statements on
brass unlike many others. The most impressive aspect of Silvestri's
score is how he weaves it all together into such an effective whole,
balancing each element with equal bombast. Where Goldsmith's effort
often degenerated into uninteresting noise, Silvestri's work never
becomes boring, and it thus functions very well on even the longer
album. The song included on both products, performed by the group
"Live," is a horrendous example of nonsensical hard rock encroaching
further into the realm of the orchestral domain. Other than the
mandatory benefits of marketing, of course (something that could apply
to this entire production), there's really no reason for this hideously
intolerable addendum, or any other from its genre, to exist in this
film. Nevertheless, the Decca album was the only one on which you could
obtain the song until it was released by the group on its own product a
few months later. It is perhaps fitting that John Debney entered the
franchise to compose for
The Scorpion King the following year; if
The Mummy Returns were to be compared to any existing score at
the time, then Debney's
Cutthroat Island would have been that
reference point. Silvestri's work here reaches the same scope of
sustained tonal bombast and often touches upon a similar swashbuckling
style in its main theme. This is clear evidence that Silvestri could
have produced a capable, if not outstanding score for the first
Pirates of the Caribbean film in 2003 had he not been thrown
overboard. Do yourself a favor by listening to
The Mummy Returns
instead and imagine the possibilities.
**** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
| Bias Check: |
For Alan Silvestri reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.46
(in 41 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.34
(in 39,968 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
|
The insert of the 2001 Decca album includes extensive credits and pictures
but no extra information about the score or film. It is arranged in a folding poster
layout that is difficult to condense once opened. The insert of the 2018 Intrada
product includes extensive information about the film, score, and release, with the
exception of a list of performers.
