Muppets From Space: (Jamshied Sharifi/Rupert
Gregson-Williams) The film franchise based on Jim Henson's Muppets
phenomenon had lost much of its magic by the 1990's. Whatever affable
characteristics prevailed in
Muppet Treasure Island had largely
been lost five years later when
Muppets From Space steered
towards secondary characters, some of which invented for the occasion.
The film's story is a parody of
Close Encounters of the Third
Kind and
Men in Black, revealing that the funny, blue Gonzo
is actually an alien who crashed at Roswell and who is expecting his
race to come and collect him (which, of course, comes in conflict with
the human characters). It has been largely agreed that the humans are
the weakness of
Muppets From Space, along with the reduced roles
for old favorites Kermit and Miss Piggy. Musically, the franchise had
benefited from a spirited score by Hans Zimmer for
Muppet Treasure
Island, and it is no surprise that a pair of Zimmer-connected
composers, Jamshied Sharifi and Rupert Gregson-Williams, took the next
assignment. The roles of the two men were vastly different; Sharifi was
responsible for following the distinctive collection of temp track
pieces used for the film and recording suitable parodies of them, while
Gregson-Williams was tasked with writing the more straight forward and
darker music for the story's villain. The resulting score is intriguing
from the standpoint of a veteran film music collector who can identify
all the temp track inspiration, but as a standalone listening
experience,
Muppets From Space is about as disjointed as it gets.
That's because the film balances the frivolous nature of its pop-related
soundtrack, scored by Sharifi with 1960's and 1970's funk and jazz, with
the more dramatic alien material that demands an orchestral and choral
approach. Considering the subject matter, Sharifi and Gregson-Williams
succeed in providing the necessary parody music for the occasion, but
does anybody seriously want to sit around and listen to it? For its
shameless attitude in the orchestral half, there's 15 minutes of
head-wagging fun to be had, but whether or not that's worth the cost of
the album is a whole other matter.
The half of the soundtrack that deals with the funk,
jazz, and blues is in tune with David Newman's
Bowfinger from
roughly the same time, but the connections to Lalo Schifrin are more
blatant. In its short bursts over the course of ten or so brief cues
centered in the middle of the score, these passages are too obnoxious to
set a consistent mood. If you're not a fan of the Hammond organ, then
start running. The first four and final five cues, however, are the
exclusive domain of the orchestral material. Two themes tie the score
together; first comes a longing lullaby for Gonzo himself, introduced in
"Gonzo's Lament" and closing with a tearjerker of a choral statement in
"Gonzo's Goodbye." Gregson-Williams' theme for Singer, the villain, is
heard in three cues on album, and makes use of the sinister, low ranges
of brass and strings. Both of these themes, along with the auxiliary
symphonic material, run through a series of parodies that will amuse
score collectors. The "Main Title" cue opens with a tribute to Bernard
Herrmann, including an initial theremine effect and a quote from the
opening of, strangely,
Vertigo. At the 0:45 mark in that same
cue, Sharifi pulls a choral subtheme directly from Basil Poledouris'
The Hunt for Red October. In "The Ark," he moves into the domain
of David Arnold's flourishing melodramatic action sound of the era. The
Gonzo theme first heard in "Gonzo's Lament" is a page out of James
Horner's children's scores of the 1990's, and by "Gonzo's Goodbye," it's
clear that
Casper was the inspiration. The theme for Singer moves
with the same stout posture and menacing tones as Zimmer's theme for the
Russians in
The Peacemaker. Jumping to "The Ships Arrive,"
Sharifi uses two quotes from Alan Silvestri's
The Abyss to flank
a portion of the opening march for Danny Elfman's
Mars Attacks!.
The victorious "Moment of Glory" takes the Gonzo theme and gives it
brass treatment typical to David Newman's
Hoffa (or the closing
of
Bowfinger). The concluding "Boldly Gone" is saturated with
Jerry Goldsmith's
Star Trek: First Contact material. Overall, you
can't fault these parodies, but while they're fun to identify, the mass
of silly funk and jazz in the middle of the album makes it a mixed
bag.
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The insert includes no extra information about the score or film.
