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Review of The Rocketeer (James Horner)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you grew tired of James Horner's later, more seriously
weighty dramatic scores and prefer the unrestrained enthusiasm of his
early adventure works, among which The Rocketeer is one of the
best.
Avoid it... if the overly-consistent innocence of Horner's soaring themes only serves to remind you of a composer rolling shamelessly in a bed of his own favorite musical constructs.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
The Rocketeer: (James Horner) There was hope in the
ranks of Walt Disney Pictures during the initial production phases of
The Rocketeer that a film franchise could be made out of the
beloved comic book hero. At a time when superhero films and their
franchises based mostly on DC Comics characters were being launched with
far darker sensibilities, The Rocketeer represented the innocent,
straight-forward days of American fantasy in the late 1930's and early
1940's. In the story, a test pilot is given the opportunity by an old
inventor to experiment with a rocket pack and, in the process of
astonishing audiences with the new device, becomes a target of Howard
Hughes, the Nazis (who want the technology for several reasons), and a
few shady mafia characters. Throw in a beautiful girl and table is set
for a typical Disney adventure. Unfortunately, the movie bombed, partly
because of the exact kind of innocence that the film was trying to
convey. The black and white distinctions in the film made it bland, and
not even a rousing score by the ever-increasingly popular James Horner
could salvage Disney's hopes. While the film slacked off at the box
office and has been forgotten, Horner's score continues to soar. The
composer commented at the time that despite his love of aviation, a
passion that would take his life at 61, he had missing every opportunity
to write music about flying, and this assignment thus became a labor of
love, a score that remained dear to his heart for years. Indeed one of
the composer's truly remarkable efforts, The Rocketeer is a
stylistic bridge between his early, brass-heavy fantasy scores and his
later trend towards the favoring of broadly melodic string romance and
drama themes. It's too serious of a score to be classified along with
Horner's long list of great works for animated features, but it also has
an undeniable touch of magic that reminds us of the light, comic book
origins of the story. It is this light-hearted, tingling feeling of
magic which makes The Rocketeer a work that has withstood the
test of time. While originality was an issue for the concurrently bright
score for An American Tail: Fievel Goes West, Horner only
references his own standards for The Rocketeer, occasionally
taking stylistic inspiration from his previous scores. And when he does,
he often improves upon those sounds, adding to The Rocketeer's
appeal over time.
Two primary themes, an ascending four-note motif for Timothy Dalton's villain, and a descending set of phrases akin to Alan Silvestri's Back to the Future time travel motif are used almost constantly in The Rocketeer. The main theme embodies the magical elements of the rocket and its aviator, serving as the basis for almost every action cue. With concert arrangements of this theme bookending the score, its consistent, extended statements do beg for some variation, and Horner provides some changes in tempo in the score's two ambitious action highlights. In "The Flying Circus" and "Jenny's Rescue" (alternately named "South Seas Send Up"), Horner offers the kind of explosive thematic expositions that made Willow so engaging. Here, he augments the long, brassy performances of the theme with an active percussion section, using cymbals, chimes, tambourines, triangles, and other light metallic elements to highlight the positive spirit and metallic technology of the story. In "The Flying Circus," the rhythmic action motifs mirror Horner's early Star Trek and Aliens writing, but he translates them into their most flighty forms. Late in that cue, some hoedown attitude from Fievel Goes West appears in the form of banjo, fiddle, and other instrumentation meant almost as a parody of such sounds. For your money, however, "South Seas Send Up" is easily the more enjoyable cue, partly because of the bass-staggered counterpoint performance of the title theme two minutes in. The more fluid performances of the identity in the opening and closing suites feature more of the magical atmosphere, however. The tingling sensation starts immediately, accompanying the film's opening takeoff sequence with an elegant combination of light electronic tones (closer to Jerry Goldsmith's style than Horner's) under a gorgeous solo piano introduction of the theme. The storybook personality continues through both suites and moments in between; Horner's theme is so fluid and aerodynamic that it's built upon drawn-out peaks and valleys meant to accentuate the thrill of flying. Detractors often attack the perpetual use of this theme in the suites and beyond, though Horner does adequately shift its performances between all four corners of the orchestra, often with grand results. More troubling could be the trademark Horner finale at the end of the film, a progression first introduced with a bang at the end of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, although its performance concluding The Rocketeer is among the better variants, especially in its emphasis on snare. The love theme in The Rocketeer also soars with innocence, and it easily eclipses the quality of many of the romantic string themes that Horner provided for films later in the decade. Heard in the form of short interludes in the two suites and during the action cues, this theme receives a lengthy performance in "Jenny" (aka "Love Theme"). From the solo horn to the full string ensemble, this theme moves as gracefully as any in Horner's career, and its strikingly gorgeous layering amidst so much enthusiastic action material will remind of the same role the love theme played in Horner's early score for Krull. Its appeal in The Rocketeer is much the same, serving also as a tie to the source music of the era that is performed on screen by the love interest herself. The villain's theme is perhaps one of the weaker points of the work, never developing with the kind convincing menace that you would hope from a score that delineates good and evil to such extremes. The rising four note motif is cartoonishly rendered at times and melds into the bland underscore in several cues before finally making an impact in the latter half of "Zeppelin," in which the theme's layering is reminiscent of the Queen Bavmorda material from Willow's climax. Overall, critics often lump The Rocketeer in with Willow and The Land Before Time as simple, adventuresome children's music of significant orchestral volume. But there is one major difference between The Rocketeer and those other efforts. This movie's character is a larger-than-life comic hero and therefore falls under a different classification of fantasy. Horner appropriately bloats every element of his score to create the needed level of bright fantasy; the major key is brutalized, the brass play a little louder, the strings perform themes at a slower tempo, and the percussion section is absolutely exhausted of every metallic resource imaginable. Together, part of The Rocketeer seems slightly exaggerated, and that is the key to its success. The original, relatively short album with 50 minutes of score and the two decent recordings of vintage jazz vocals ("Begin the Beguine" is as fluffy as it gets) was a rarity in the early 1990's before later re-pressings. A limited, 2016 2-CD set from Intrada Records added over twenty minutes of largely incidental score, but the remastering and restoration of the major action pieces to their original lengths made the expanded album an easy recommendation. The label re-issued the same contents in 2020, altering the film version to make it match the original album's mix, and it quickly sold out as well. On any album, only a flimsy villain's theme and the inevitable lack of variation in tone keep The Rocketeer one short burst of flame from the highest rating. ****
TRACK LISTINGS:
1991 Hollywood Album:
Total Time: 57:16
2016/2020 Intrada Albums: Total Time: 138:59
* not featured in film ** performed by Melora Hardin
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert of the 1991 album contains no information about the score or film
and is a poster that is difficult to re-fold into its original form. Those of the 2016
and 2020 Intrada albums include extensive information about the score and film. The 2020
album came with the following note from Intrada: "This slightly re-mastered release
contains identical contents to Intrada ISC 357, issued in 2016, but now features 1991
audio levels and EQ as per original scoring mixer Shawn Murphy."
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The reviews and other textual content contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Christian Clemmensen at Filmtracks Publications. All artwork and sound clips from The Rocketeer are Copyright © 1991, 2016, 2020, Hollywood Records, Intrada Records, Intrada Records and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 9/24/96 and last updated 4/16/21. |
