Filmtracks Traffic Rank: #1,059
Written 3/19/97, Revised 7/22/07
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Buy it... only if you are a collector of Joel McNeely's often
superior adventure scores for obscure films and series.
Avoid it... if you demand superior sound quality from all of your
digital age scores.
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| McNeely |
Wild America: (Joel McNeely) While the tagline for
this 1997 film claimed that it was based on a true story, you'd have a
hard time believing that anybody would want to make a film based on the
premise. Warner spent the money on it, though, and thus we're left with
a ridiculously exaggerated and poorly executed depiction on how three
brothers got their start filming wildlife. The Stouffer brothers did
indeed grow up to be respected animal photographers, and the aim of
Wild America was to show how they, as teenagers, set off on their
first adventure with a single camera and film in hand. They encounter
dangers along the way that are completely unrealistic, complicated in
the film by the fact that some of the animals are obviously not real and
the special effects are laughable. It's the find of film that fails to
maintain the interest of kids and will simply irritate adults, which is
why, among other reasons, the film failed miserably with critics and
audiences. One of the greatest ironies of Wild America is that
director William Dear's finished product plays as though it was not only
starring 18-year-olds, but was created by them too. Composer Joel
McNeely, despite the great promise early in his career, some mentoring
by John Williams, and hopes by many film music collectors that he would
break through into the mainstream, would languish with assignments like
Wild America for ten years after this project. It is a typical
effort for McNeely in that he usually provides music that is far
superior to the films themselves, especially over the course of 1997 and
1998, when he would score a series of duds so magnificent in their
failure that his career would backtrack to the realm of
straight-to-video projects thereafter. For Wild America, his
music would be of distinct relation to the Western Americana spirit of
Gold Diggers and The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles,
featuring the same diversity of orchestral action and character music
that makes for wholesome family listening.
Thematically,
Wild America develops several
lines for its full orchestra to explore, and these ideas are haphazardly
spread through the first half of the score without much organization.
McNeely's ideas come together in the highlight cue of "Marshall Flies
The Skybolt," with each idea for the boys arranged in succession for
soaring performances by the full ensemble. Throughout the score, McNeely
alternates between heart-pounding rhythms and mysterious rumblings
combined with accents like a small choir and Indian chants. A touch of
John Williams' adventure scores of the 80's shows an obvious influence.
The final fifteen minutes are a delightful balance of action and
innocence perfect for a film like
Wild America; the
aforementioned lengthy suite cue ("Marshall Flies The Skybolt") and the
"Epilogue" offer a light choir. Halfway into the suite, McNeely pulls a
seemingly direct quote of James Horner's
Casper theme for
children's choir, an awkward and sudden diversion. A quick and humorous
tribute to Bernard Herrmann's
Vertigo is interpolated just over
two minutes into "The Cave of a Thousand Sleeping Bears," likely a nod
to the fact that McNeely had just conducted the classic score a few
years prior for a re-recording. Unfortunately, the Prometheus release of
Wild America presents the score in a distant, muffled, and tinny
sound. At times, the score lags behind the sound of early 1990's
bootlegs, with lackluster clarity and suspect mixing making it difficult
to fully enjoy many of the cues. It carries the feel of a 1960's Western
released by Film Score Monthly, which is inexcusable given recording and
digital transfer technologies of the late 1990's. This presentation
ruins the contributions of the accent instruments and voices, with the
native flutes and percussion, as well as the Indian chanting in "On the
Firing Range" almost unrecognizable due to the muffled atmosphere.
McNeely himself has lamented the quality of this release, and the
commercial song album features none of McNeely's score to relieve this
problem. The end result is an extremely mixed bag; better treatment of
this score is definitely merited.
@Amazon.com: CD or
Download
- Score as Written for Film: ****
- Score as Heard on CD: ***
- Overall: ***
Bias Check:
For Joel McNeely reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.38
(in 16 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.14
(in 8,446 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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