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| Howard |
Nanny McPhee Returns: (James Newton Howard) Not
quite as successful as Emma Thompson's adaptation of Christianna Brand's
"Nurse Matilda" books into 2005's surprisingly popular
Nanny
McPhee, the 2010 sequel still managed an impressive box office haul
and friendly critical response. Known in North America as
Nanny
McPhee Returns and internationally as
Nanny McPhee and the Big
Bang, the movie follows a plotline of redemption similar to its
predecessor. Now set at the time of World War II, the tale tells of an
English mother of three whose husband is at war and also has to take
care of two young cousins, all the while trying to fend off attempts by
her brother-in-law to sell her portion of the family farm. As expected,
Nanny McPhee mysteriously appears and immediately instills upon the
children her sense of obedience through magical means. When a message
arrives indicating that the children's father was killed in the war, the
group sets out to London to seek confirmation, using McPhee's powers and
connections to discover that it is a ploy. She rides off as usual in her
transfigured form at the end, just as the family is reunited and no
longer needs her services. One has to wonder what miracles she could
work on the Congress of the United States if Thompson really wanted to
spice things up with McPhee in the next planned sequel. Otherwise, the
formula threatens to get old, and already lost in this first sequel is
some of the magical appeal established by composer Patrick Doyle in the
first film. Although Doyle relied heavily upon the influence of styles
by Danny Elfman and James Horner, he translated that sound well through
his own musical voice. Both instrumentally robust and thematically
cohesive,
Nanny McPhee is a score too dainty, predictable, and
wholesome for some listeners, but it at least stands on a solid
foundation that appeals to Doyle collectors and enthusiasts of those
other composers' vintage works alike. Stepping into the franchise in
2010 is James Newton Howard, a veteran of children's scores from his
association with Disney for several non-musical animated films a decade
prior. The shift in composer is odd (especially after Thomas Newman left
the project), because although a novice director was brought in to helm
the 2010 follow-up, the same producers, writer, and studio coordinated
the sequel at a time when Doyle had a relatively open schedule.
Inevitably, however, Howard provided essentially a reboot score in the
franchise, casting aside all three of Doyle's themes for
Nanny
McPhee and tackling the project from his own perspective. This
decision led to a score that sounds, in its basic characteristics,
vaguely like Doyle's original but fails to capture the same cohesive
spirit or exude a memorable personality.
For those discouraged by the abandonment of Doyle's
material for
Nanny McPhee Returns, at least you can take heart in
the fact that Howard has written a score less reliant upon the previous
inspirations and instead looks back in different places for ideas. The
instrumentation and general balance of comedy, fantasy, and drama is
roughly the same, though Howard really emphasizes the comedic elements
with saxophone due to the script's lighthearted action sequences. A fair
amount of Mickey Mousing is to be heard in
Nanny McPhee Returns,
with snippets of 1940's jazz inserted as flair in a few places. The
usual tingling percussion and light choir are applied in about the same
doses, as are whimsical woodwind sequences and harpsichord formality.
Doyle's intriguing use of tuba and bassoon is absent, however. Thematic
development is where Howard stumbles the most, writing three or four
interesting themes for
Nanny McPhee Returns but not presenting
them consistently enough to give them the true impact they could have
had during their clearest enunciations in the final third of the film. A
redemptive dramatic idea that achieves its full form in "The Harvest"
and "Leaps of Faith" is built upon easy harmonic shifts that will recall
Andrew Lockington's highlights from
Journey to the Center of the
Earth a few years prior. An action motif that comes together in
"Triumphant Trappers" has the makings of Howard's theme from
Waterworld but reminds of John Williams'
Hook in its
marching mode and David Arnold's
Independence Day in the "An
Explosion-Free Day" and "Leaps of Faith" cues (listen especially at 1:50
into the former, as well as on trumpet at 0:25 into the latter). A wild
comedy rhythm in "Speeding Through London" and occupying all the
"Animated Titles" is as rowdy as Doyle's most haphazard equivalent. A
stomping march for the war between the children in "The British Museum
of Poo" is a dominant identity early in the film. The closest
resemblance to Doyle's progressions comes in the mystery of "The Way I
Work." Unfortunately, these thematic identities never congeal to form a
strong narrative in
Nanny McPhee Returns, leaving the listener
grasping for individual moments of merit that will recall the finer
tonal efforts from within Howard's career. The latter half of the
hour-long album features a handful of these undeniable highlights, but
even here the instrumental usage is predictable and some of the
enthusiastic performance emphasis existing in the London Symphony
Orchestra's rendition of Doyle's score is lost in the sequel, yielding
the kind of sparse depth and lack of passion you often hear in David
Newman's action/comedy blends. If you have no interest in the concept
and are instead seeking only the best music from the
Nanny McPhee
franchise, start with Doyle's score instead.
*** @Amazon.com: CD or
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| Bias Check: |
For James Newton Howard reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.4
(in 62 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.26
(in 71,523 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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