: (Heitor Pereira)
Twenty years after its debut and after an eleven-year break, the
franchise fights on. A sequel to the 2011 spin-off
had long been in the works, but studio restructuring and
countless script rewrites delayed
until 2022. By this point, the titular character has retired due to
expending eight of his nine lives, but his time as a domesticated house
cat is interrupted when old villains complicate his life. Teaming up
with his romantic partner from the first film, Puss in Boots goes on a
journey to find a wishing star that can grant him some of his lives
back. Redemption and mortality are the themes of the movie, and both
critics and audiences responded favorably, setting the table for another
entry in the franchise to follow. Several production elements changed
significantly for the sequel, most notably the animation style, but a
different approach awaited the music for
as well. Whereas the 2011 score by Henry Jackman was a
traditional, loving ode to the two Zorro scores by James Horner and
Ennio Morricone's vintage Western techniques (albeit filtered through
Hans Zimmer parody modes), the soundtrack for the 2022 sequel diminishes
some of that high style in favor of more contemporary tones. Replacing
Jackman is another animation veteran, Heitor Pereira, whose expertise on
guitar gave some listeners hope for more uniquely robust Latin flair.
Along with Pereira came several original songs, including one co-written
by the composer for performance by lead voice Antonio Banderas and a
cast of wild secondary talent. The style of the "Fearless Hero" song is
frantic and chaotic, leaving little elegance left from Banderas'
accomplished tone elsewhere. That song also has little connection to
Pereira's score for
For franchise enthusiasts and film score collectors,
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish could be labelled a failure solely
because Pereira, for whatever reason, did not utilize any of Jackman's
themes from the prior film. Moreover, he completely drops the Horner
elements and only supplies the Morricone influences for select cues
involving the new villains. All the high parody Latin pizazz from
Jackman's score is completely gone here, with the remaining instrumental
connections generic and weak by comparison. The strategic decision to
head this direction with the music is among the most disappointing of
any movie in 2022, Pereira simply unable to compete favorably on any
level with his predecessor in this instance. In the process of losing
the authenticity of the Horner emulation, Pereira offers too much of a
modern edge to function with the Latin stereotypes, the acoustic guitar,
castinets, and other genre contributors joined by contemporary electric
bass and guitar. Vocals include those typical to standard fantasy and
the Morricone parody technique, though they become highly annoying in
their inflection in "Holy Frijoles!" and a few other places. Some purely
contemporary comedy cues like "Retrospective," leftovers from tired John
Powell equivalents, are insufferably out of place with the half-hearted
Latin performances. The instruments sometimes sounds obnoxiously
synthetic, perhaps because they are sampled or perhaps because they are
simply poorly mixed. There are sound effects applied at times, too,
including a cracking whip, but these don't define the score. With the
obvious Horner connections gone, the music sounds less like an
accomplished parody and more like a generically substandard children's
entry. The loss of Jackman's themes is compounded by their replacement
with less memorable alternatives that are not expressed with enough
clarity to dominantly establish themselves. While Jackman's themes did
rely on structures and progressions explored extensively in Horner's
Zorro scores, Pereira seemingly doesn't follow any precedent.
(Incidentally, the "Star Light-Star Bright" cue does not use the
children's nursery rhyme song.)
The easily recognizable hero and romance themes from
Puss in Boots are replaced with new variants for the same
concepts, and the titular character receives something of a "coming of
age" identity as well. None of these themes really impacts the score
until its final third, however, Pereira instead allowing new secondary
ideas to carry much of the load for the majority of the film. While his
ideas for the therapy dog character, Perrito, and the villains, the
Three Bears Crime Family, are not particularly interesting, they are
inserted more regularly and obviously into the score than the more
central themes. Pereira's new main character theme sounds like the
secondary phrase of a longer call-and-answer theme and doesn't have a
meaningful impact until an attractive performance in the middle of "A
Close Shave" on strings and woodwinds. It then recurs on acoustic guitar
in the middle of "Santa Coloma," as much the same in "A Better Point of
View," and becomes heroic for a flash during "Puss and Kitty's Flamenco
Dance." This main theme receives mild redemption at 0:58 into "He's Here
for Me" but stumbles through "No Magic Required." A little more cohesive
is a new romance theme doubling for the magical element, opening "Star
Light-Star Bright," hinted in the middle of "Legend of the Wishing
Star," and beginning "No Magic Required" under other new thematic
material. It starts "Team Friendship" with exuberance but necessarily
clarity and is finally expressed in full at the outset of "Make a Wish"
before reducing to solo guitar for a soft conclusion. Pereira's
substitution for Jackman's hero theme is more of a simplistic motif, a
long ascent of chords in anticipation with heavier Latin
instrumentation. This hero idea is introduced as a crescendo at the end
of "Star Light-Star Bright," persists on solo trumpet in the middle of
"You Need to Retire," returns at the height of "Getaway" and late in "Go
Ahead, Run For It," and matures at 1:04 into "The Fight With Death,"
ending that cue again on solo trumpet. There is some measure of
potential in these themes, but Pereira never establishes them well
enough for them to succeed, and he certainly doesn't mingle them with
much intelligence to suggest connections between the protagonists. They
are, simply put, limp and uninspiring.
Listeners more in tune with the comedic elements of
these kinds of scores may appreciate what Pereira attempts with his two
secondary themes for the dog and villains in
Puss in Boots: The Last
Wish. The former has a touch of Hawaiian flavor with slide guitar
and ukulele to completely distinguish it from the Latin aspects of the
lead cats, which is an acceptable strategic decision but not one that
benefits the listening experience outside of context. It's heard
throughout "Meet Dog" in full and hinted at 0:41 into "Horner Heist,"
recurring late in "The Enchanted Map" and the second half of "Stop and
Smell the Roses." Meanwhile, the new villain theme is so obvious and
pervasive that it may be the only thing you recall from the score. Its
five-note descending phrases with harmonica and banjo accents open
"Track That Cat" and develop further at 0:56 into "The Three Bears Crime
Family" on more modern instrumentation, achieving the equivalent
silliness to "Jack and Jill" from the prior score. It opens "Legend of
the Wishing Star" with sleaze, is littered throughout "Mowing Posies" in
exoticism, becomes disjointed in "Cabin in the Woods," and adopts eerie
comedic tones during all of "We Are Home." The villain theme opens "Your
Favorite Book" on solo female voice, starts "Bear Family Counseling" in
solitude, sparsely meanders at the beginning of "A Proper Family," turns
slightly dramatic in "All You Care About," and shifts to a hopeful
stance in the middle of "Make a Wish" once the characters'
transformation is complete. There are a few unique melodic touches in
the score, including the nice moment of lament for Latin elements
throughout "Eulogy." The album presentation runs extremely long, the
score lacking any narrative consistency to sustain that length. Two of
the Spanish-language songs at the end, "La Vida es Una" and "Por Que te
Vas," make for better listening than either the score or the two
variants of Banderas' "Fearless Hero." The album does not include two
Harry Gregson-Williams cues from
Shrek 2, "Obliged to Help" and
"The End/Happily Ever After," that were dropped into the film. On the
whole, the score and its album are significant disappointments after the
guilty pleasure parodies from Jackman for the prior film. There was no
artistic need to totally abandon all the themes from
Puss in
Boots, and Pereira's minimally effective replacements are largely
devoid of the same infectious personality.
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