Thor - Patrick Doyle

If Kenneth Branagh is an unlikely choice to direct a comic book movie, then Patrick Doyle is a mildly unlikely choice to score it, but I guess we should be grateful Branagh as able to engage his composer of choice. Films based on Marvel Comics have had variably good scores, the high water being Elfman's Spider-Man efforts, but with some fine entries from the X-Men films and John Ottman's decent scores for the Fantastic Four.

The most striking thing about Thor is that it doesn't sound a whole lot like Doyle most of the time. Much has been made of its Remote Control-ness, which isn't entirely unfair. There's a lot of sustained string lines and percussion; Frost Giant Battle is typical in this regard. It's all quite exciting and there's more going on than in the average RC (or Brian Tyler) score, at least the strings occasionally bounce around but it sounds from interviews that Doyle very much did what was expected without too much room for manoeuvre.

Outside of the action, the incidental scoring is action without the drums in a lot of cases. Long string lines and low registers predominate (another aspect Doyle commented upon in interviews). The main melodic material is fine enough at the time, but not exactly indelible afterwards. I'm sure it'll look good on his CV and keep his profile raised - I rather dreaded his music being rejected given that his scoring can be a touch intrusive at times (although this usually makes for a great album). Thor is certainly muscular (haha) entertainment, but the strictures of the studio and genre conventions don't really show Doyle at his best.

If you can find your magical hammer, sell it and go buy the score from Amazon.