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| Silvestri |
Richie Rich: (Alan Silvestri) The end of the road
was in sight for child actor Macaulay Culkin with 1994's adaptation of
the comic book character for
Richie Rich. Between the actor's
increasing age and the reportedly insufferable antics of his business
managing father, Culkin left the scene until returning a decade later as
an adult. In this film, he plays the bratty but lonely son of extremely
wealthy parents in Chicago. While he attempts to befriend kids from a
local sandlot, his parents are attacked by evil forces within their
corporation that wish to steal the fortune. The children have to use the
inventions of a scientist on staff to repel the nasty executive and his
henchmen while also bonding together. (Some viewers may be tempted, as
with
Home Alone, to wish for the rich little shit to meet a
terrible demise, but no such satisfaction awaits you curmudgeons.)
Eventually, the parents return for an all-out battle alongside the kids
and servants of the house. The physical gags are truly awful in
Richie Rich, and critical and audience reactions were widely
unkind. Amazingly, the movie still managed to make a profit once video
returns were factored, yet no sequel was forthcoming. The director
tapped his
Grumpy Old Men collaborator, Alan Silvestri, for the
original music in the picture, and what you receive is exactly that
which you'd expect from the composer. This assignment came at the height
of Silvestri's exuberant comedy mode, but it subtracts the contemporary
romance interludes typical to his cheery scores that aren't as focused
on children. There are no surprises instrumentally, with the specialty
uses very limited and not very effective when they do appear. The highly
conventional soundscape exists without any harpsichord or other
representation of wealth, which is a bit odd. A solo viola is used to
this end, but it doesn't quite work as well. Instead, strings are the
heavy lifters generally in the soundscape, with woodwinds providing the
bounding character. Metallic percussion, a staple of Silvestri's music
in this genre, is present but not really impactful.
The tone of the score for
Richie Rich is almost
unyieldingly positive, with some marginally effective faux suspense and
action of minimal impact in its second half. The abrasive piano and
chopped string action in "Cliffhangers" is obnoxious in its fragmented
bursts, but the cue does offer hints of
Predator 2 rhythms in its
midsection. Supporting villain material is tepid at best. Otherwise,
Silvestri's strategy for this story could drive a person mad, the first
dozen minutes of the score almost solely dedicated to endless renditions
of chipper main theme. Only in the latter stages of the score does a
secondary friendship theme save the listener's sanity with a dose of
genuine care and redemption. Silvestri's main theme for
Richie
Rich is a hopelessly uppity melody with no distinctively different
secondary phrasing, causing its primary phrase to be repeated endlessly
to the detriment of the listening experience. It contains an underlying
rhythm that sometimes reminds of the song "Belle" from Alan Menken's
Beauty and the Beast, and this idea also becomes distracting at
times. Heard immediately on flute and tuba over bouncing string rhythms
in "I Have a Son," this theme expands to broad strings and a variety of
other performances across the whole ensemble; there are five or six such
major renditions by the group, but they're not very long. Silvestri
makes up for the lack of true secondary phrasing in the theme by varying
the performance extensively in these portions of the work. This mode of
repetitive reinvention returns immediately in "Surprise Guests" on
lighter shades under the "Belle"-like rhythmic motions and dominates the
entire cue similar to the prior one, becoming a little tedious. The main
theme for Richie bubbles over once again in "Chief Executive Kid," this
time with a statelier demeanor. The "Belle" rhythm drives the motion of
the cue, only pausing for the rousing theme flourishes, and several of
these massive string performances with crashing cymbals highlight the
cue's second half. The idea builds out of the shallow mystery early in
"Access Terminated" in low tones and follows the friendship theme with
noble intent in the middle of "Something's Missing," the "Belle" rhythm
carrying the cue to its quirkier end.
The main theme diminishes greatly in the second half of
the score as Richie's pampered environment is attacked. Brass belches
out parts of his theme against the action rhythms of "Cliffhangers,"
extends out of the weirdly nondescript suspense in "Sandlotters Attack,"
and attempts in pieces to exert itself throughout the dissonant portions
of "Bomb Surprise." The idea punctuates the friendship theme at the
climax of "Richest Kid in the World" in a nice technical combination for
the acceptance of Richie into the group and vice versa. That friendship
identity is a fuller representation of pretty drama in the score, and
its few lengthy performances are highly attractive. It debuts on lush
strings and then oboe at 0:21 into "Something's Missing" but takes a
while to develop, including a brief interjection at 2:52 into
"Cliffhangers" and declaration of victory for a moment at 4:07 into that
cue. In easily the highlight of the score, though, it opens "Richest Kid
in the World" on woodwinds with a sense of anticipation and bursts with
redemptive spirit at 0:22 and 0:50 for the entire ensemble. The final
piece of the puzzle in
Richie Rich is the material for the
villains, which isn't enunciated well enough to be effective and instead
relies upon its mere inflection to suffice. Built nicely out of the
"Belle" rhythm on low brass and woodwinds at 0:34 into "Access
Terminated," this music stumbles in the latter half of "Sandlotters
Attack," gains more power momentarily in "Bomb Surprise," and is timid
in most of "Bean Saves the Team" before consolidating on brass near the
end for its last hurrah. By the conclusion of the score, the main theme
may make you want to strangle Richie while the friendship theme is too
infrequently expressed to save the day. Still, the entirety remains
functional and devoid of significantly challenging portions, with its
sound quality average for the era. While there might be temptation to
revisit the lengthy "I Have a Son" series of main theme performances to
represent this score on a Silvestri compilation, the real charm comes in
the much shorter but worthy friendship theme's wonderful maturation in
"Richest Kid in the World." The rest of the score doesn't pay you with
enough uniquely engaging music to merit the short, score-only listening
experience on album, and it stands as one of Silvestri's more mundane
genre entries.
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| Bias Check: |
For Alan Silvestri reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.34
(in 56 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.23
(in 41,268 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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