adaptation to film in 1989, there
was a short-lived push to bring a second tier of radio and comic action
icons from the 1930's to the big screen, highlighted by the popular
failure of 1994's
. Carrying a less interesting cast
and a plot with an equal number of cliches, director Simon Wincer's
bombed to an even greater extent, pushed aside by
heavyweight summer releases of 1996 such as
. An explicitly campy demeanor to the script,
performances, and even the costumes of
attempted to
infuse humor into a concept already brimming with rather amusing logical
fallacies (beginning with the purple outfit of the hero). Playful stabs
at the Indiana Jones franchise and seeming indecision about the level of
mysticism caused this jungle-born fantasy topic to lose its luster, and
a rather tepid love story left largely cut from the film didn't help.
The fad of adapting comic book legends may gave died off for a while
thereafter (the resurrection of the studios' attempts with 2000's
was a predictable reboot of the same general idea), but the
film scores of that genre remain as curiosities at the very least. The
music for these fantasy concepts and their conceptual manipulation of
time allowed for large scale experimentation on the part of the
composers assigned to give them a lasting identity, opening the doors
for them to weave a diverse fabric of thematic and unconventional
instrumentation into rousing scores, both in the respective films and on
their albums. Even relative newcomers to film music who are vaguely
familiar with the style of composition of David Newman know that the son
of the infamous Alfred Newman is capable of writing long and engagingly
melodic themes for dramatic movies. His ability to highlight a score
with a spontaneous cue of orchestral marvel has never gone unnoticed.
His score for
has arguably the most memorable and
consistently strong thematic material of his career, and even a project
as silly as 2000's
offers a short, but brilliant
orchestral outburst for the film's outlandish ending.
Most collectors of David Newman's work, which has been
restrained mostly to dumb comedy through the years (he collaborated with
Wincer on the wretched
Operation Dumbo Drop a year before this),
will be interested in knowing if
The Phantom has any of the
memorable traits of his work for
Galaxy Quest not long after.
Overall, the strength of the writing is the same, but the development of
ideas in
The Phantom remains somewhat inferior by comparison,
despite some beefier orchestrations. While Jerry Goldsmith's
The
Shadow is still a cult favorite many years later, Newman's
The
Phantom sadly failed to capture the same interest in the film score
community. As a novelty object, the score is still debated in the
fantasy circles, but something about Newman's work for the film lacks
the exuberant personality and thematic distinction to elevate it to
truly memorable status. Movies of this genre need, more than perhaps
those in any other, a strong, easily-identifiable theme. Whether they're
corny, over-the-top, or deadly serious, fantasy films with a shadowy
heroic villain depend heavily upon a simple and recognizable theme (or
even less complicated motif) to herald the entrance and exit of the
title character. Subsequently, a style of exciting orchestral music is
required to push the fantasy element and exaggerate any difference in
setting and the time of the story. On this second task, Newman succeeds
above and beyond the call of duty, providing a substantial amount of
impressively large orchestral music for
The Phantom. His
incorporation of James Horner's usual exotic flutes, as a representation
of the remote island where the original phantom was marooned, is an
excellent choice. Also included for dramatic effect is a beefy male
chorus that figures strongly in the first and last cues of the score
(despite the voices' somewhat stale unified performances). Thumping and
tingling electronic sounds seek to modernize the sound in Goldsmith
fashion but with only moderate success. Newman does make a few attempts
to develop electronic distortions in the mix, but without much memorable
effect. A more dramatic presence of those pre-recorded elements in the
composition and mix probably would have helped distinguish
The
Phantom as a more enjoyable piece of music overall, because the
orchestra itself is the most lacking element in the equation.
The performances of
The Phantom by the London
Metropolitan Orchestra often lag in their enthusiasm and are poorly
orchestrated. Their mixing is particularly flat, and it is this lack of
lofty sound that causes the superhero score to unforgivingly slip by
without notice or with lacking personality in several sections. The most
unique and interesting moment of the score is Newman's use of soft
"phantom" chants at the beginning of the title cue. These were abandoned
for the remainder of the score, though even with those choral elements,
Newman's orchestra didn't release enough flighty energy to substantiate
the composition on paper. Also of concern is Newman's handling of the
themes in
The Phantom. Rather than establish a strong set of
primary and secondary ideas for the lead character and his exploits,
Newman instead wrote one very long-lined theme for the titular hero and
pulls sections from that idea for individual applications thereafter.
The usage basically functions, and the work as a whole is quite
satisfying in its constant switching between these fragments. But, as a
result, each of these interesting motifs fails to be explored as much as
desired, especially in the score's highlighted mystery portions in which
dark fantasy is reflected in Newman's most melodramatic expressions
("Conversation With Dad/Sengh Symbol"). A love theme, heard beautifully
in "Must Be the Humidity" and "Escaping the Island," is underdeveloped,
and the identity for the villain, Drax, is really nothing more than a
cyclical rhythmic figure of mainly synthetic origins that accomplishes
little. Nevertheless, the score, even with its occasional blasts of
unbearable noise, contains several strong moments of orchestral filler
material, led by the second half of its final cue. Pieces of it were
used quite often in trailers for subsequent films. On album, the
original Milan CD of 46 minutes lacked most of the second half of the
score. In 2012, La-La Land Records provided 76 minutes in a much better
rounded presentation, illuminating many of the score's stronger
attributes. The mix on this product is also improved, though expect the
xylophones to be obnoxiously prominent at times. For any fan of the
fantasy character genre,
The Phantom is a decent entry and its
2012 album is very entertaining in parts, but mainstream listeners are
more likely to pass it over for cult favorites like
The Shadow or
modern classics such as Danny Elfman's
Batman. Average work in
this genre just isn't good enough.
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- Music as Written for the Film: ***
- Music as Heard on the 1996 Milan Album: ***
- Music as Heard on the 2012 La-La Land Album: ****
- Overall: ***
| Bias Check: |
For David Newman reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.17
(in 12 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.27
(in 19,638 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
|
