: (James Newton Howard/Gabriel Yared)
When nobody involved in a production was the first choice for his or her
assigned role, it can't be surprising that the final product is
uninspired. Such was the destiny of
. The Columbia
picture went through several different directors and lead stars before
Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck shot a duo of Angelina Jolie and Johnny
Depp that had very poor on screen chemistry in a plot that required a
significant amount of romantic spark to succeed. Jolie is a British
secret agent and Depp is supposedly a tourist caught up in a tangled web
of betrayals and identity shifts. The two comically elude layers of
antagonists and weave in and out of impossible circumstances before
their partnership leads to a laughably predictable resolution. The flair
of Paris and Venice couldn't compensate for lurching plot misdirection
and lousy dialogue performed without the witty pizzazz to place
properly in the genre of comedy. Critics mostly blasted the
film (or at least disregarded it as lackluster), though strong
international box office returns likely contributed to its surprising
nominations in major categories at the Golden Globes. Not immune to the
game of musical chairs being played with the crew of
was composer Gabriel Yared, whose score would yield a European
sensibility probably along the same lines as Frederic Talgorn's for the
previous incarnation of the story on screen. While likely romantically
generic in its sum in this particular case, Yared's work often has a
Mediterranean style akin to Ennio Morricone and dozens of contemporaries
of lesser fame. Henckel von Donnersmarck, in only his second feature at
the helm (after the widely praised
), decided
to reject Yared's score within a matter of weeks of the film's scheduled
distribution.
After learning that most of the temp score assembled to
replace Yared's work (based upon the director's general preferences as
stated to his music editors) was written by James Newton Howard, the
American composer was hired as a last minute replacement. It's not the
first time Howard has handled such a major assignment with little time
to spare, but unlike
King Kong, his music for
The Tourist
does exhibit all the telltale signs of a score written in a rush.
Ironically, though, Henckel von Donnersmarck got exactly what he heard
in the temp track, however, because the finished replacement score
sounds very much like a wide-ranging, schizophrenic collection of genre
staples and fragments pulled from Howard's previous works. The composer
has, at several times in recent years, sounded as though he has been
channeling the style of other composers through his own stylistic
devices, especially in regards to John Powell's ostinato-driven thriller
sounds. But in the case of
The Tourist, it seems that he went the
route of absolutely generic cliches and did so with his tongue firmly
lodged in his cheek. Listeners expecting him to reprise his ballsy
Powell-like approach from
Salt earlier in the year will be
disappointed, though there are a couple of places that do touch upon
that sound. He does humorously include two slight renditions of the
primary
Salt theme on cello starting at 1:24 into "Arrival at
Venice." Otherwise,
The Tourist is a series of mostly dainty,
comical rhythmic devices and stereotypical romance techniques that were
met with disdain from some critics in their reviews of the film. For the
quirky aspect of the film, Howard devises an affable but silly pair of
four-note progressions and sets them over a spritely rhythm of paired
notes (heard together for the first time at 1:10 into "Burned Letter").
They're not used very frequently, however, diminishing their
effectiveness. Secondary motifs include basic faux suspense in the spy
genre that almost seems to poke fun at David Arnold's Quantum material
in the James Bond franchise.
Howard's love theme for
The Tourist, developed
initially in the opening portion of "Paranoid Math Teacher" and
flourishing with orchestral zeal in several cues thereafter, is
frightfully similar in progression to something Alan Menken would write
for a Disney film, but phrased in the instrumental language of Rachel
Portman's
Only You. An offshoot in "Bedroom Dreams" oddly shares
several progressions with Joel McNeely's main theme for the
Tinkerbell franchise. Piano solos in "Elise Offers a Ride" and
others lack much performance emphasis. The occasional application of an
accordion is stereotypical to Paris, but unfortunately spills over to
the action in Venice for the benefit of unquestioning audiences. Puffed
flutes over the theme, along with tingling celesta and other light
percussion, solidify the theme's extremely airy personality, almost
pushing the score to the realm of parody in cues like "A Very Nice
Hotel" and "Arriving at the Ball." A descending celesta figure late in
"Because I Kissed You" is reminiscent of the time motif in Alan
Silvestri's
Back to the Future music. The tone of the score
changes suddenly whenever the chase requires, the title theme and
associated rhythms in "Sudden Departure" joined by hip synthetic
rhythm-setters. Interestingly, the fluffy tone of
The Tourist is
in part perpetuated by Howard's choice to mix the orchestral elements
far in front of the synthetic ones, another reason this score really
sounds little like
Salt. Even the pair of "Rooftop Run" and
"Chase Through the Canals" is dominated by treble elements, too. Because
the score jumps around in tone so frequently, it has little narrative
flow, the punch-line cue "Personal Cheque" closing out the score on an
unresolved note. The album presentation is generous with Howard's
material, including over an hour of it (perhaps unnecessarily). But the
bonus of the album is hearing one retained cue from Yared's score at the
end, a dance saturated with the same European sensibilities that Howard
clearly emulated. In the end, one has to wonder if Yared's entire score
would have worked just as well, if not better.
*** @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 3.27
(in 71,587 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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