Green Lantern - James Newton Howard

I'm not sure at what point superhero/comic book scores started getting samey and kinda dull. My money is on Graeme Revell's average effort for Daredevil, but I could be wrong. If you work forwards from Superman, there's little drop in quality until well into the 90's after Messrs Elfman and Goldenthal stopped scoring for caped (or otherwise attired) heroic types. Perhaps only the X-Men franchise has kept its musical head above water, quality wise, although from the solid and edifying heights of John Powell, it's slipped down to the knock off Remote Control meets Powell by Henry Jackman (not singling Jackman out on purpose, just wrong place, wrong time). Even Patrick Doyle turned in a fairly average effort for Thor; still, I suspect he got a decent paycheck and it's no bad thing keeping ones profile high.

Having delved into the back issues of FSM, I've been slightly surprised at how highly rated James Newton Howard is. It's not that I think Howard is a bad composer, on the contrary, his Shyamalan efforts are excellent to terrific, but the rest is rather variable. He certainly didn't do a great deal to perk up Christopher Nolan's morose Batman pictures while working with Hans Zimmer and with Green Lantern he gets a solo comic book gig. At least Green Lantern is materially more exciting than his Batmans (Batmen?), with a broad and very Goldsmithian, fifth based brass theme. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear particularly often and even when it does, it doesn't quite hit the nail on the head.

One of Green Lantern's biggest problems (other than looking like, coming across as and generally appearing to be a second to third rate superhero and artwork that looks like it's from a spoof of the genre) is that good ideas in its score are swamped with electronics. Sections sound like the horrible overlays that plagued parts of Michael Kamen's otherwise rather good original X-Men score. Not that Kamen was responsible for them, merely obliged to suffer having them put over his orchestral score, but it was clearly a sign of things to come. Of course, while Howard has put the electronics in himself, they smother some fine orchestral writing. Green Lantern isn't terrible but it doesn't really distinguish itself in the pantheon of superhero scores. Once upon a time, each superhero had his (or her) own sound world, now there's not a lot that sets them apart. Here's hoping Alan Silvestri can do something a bit more memorable with Captain America. As it were.

If you can't find a CD shop with your lantern (green or otherwise), go and acquire it from Amazon.

February 2011 Round Up: Battle LA, The Eagle, Gnomeo & Juliet, The Mechanic

Battle: Los Angeles - Brian Tyler

Brian Tyler used to be really promising, but seems to have got stuck with a lot of fairly crappy movies (Alien V Predator: Requiem anyone?), or at least movies that don't require much in the way of subtlety or skill. Battlefield: Los Angeles continues the trend. Imagine Tron: Legacy with all the subtlety taken out, even less in the way of memorable melodic material and action music that's largely indistinguishable from his other scores or ones from Remote Control. Still, it's the kind of scoring that makes what used to pass for a muscular score - Goldsmith's Total Recall or Poledouris' Robocop or Starship Troopers - seem positively wimpish in comparison and appear like masterpieces of nuance.

The Eagle - Atli Orvarsson

Atli Orvarsson might still count as promising and, for some reason, composers from Nordic and Scandinavian countries are usually ace (albeit more in the classical realm, Sibelius, Nielsen and Tviett wrote some of the 20th century's finest works. Oh, and Sigur Ros). Having seemingly appeared from nowhere to score Stuart Little 3 (even Alan Silvestri has to say no eventually), he has a decent CV of TV and movie credits to his name. His latest, The Eagle, is about a lost Roman legion... hang on, wasn't that what The Last Legion was about? Despite actually being a Remote Control composer, Atli's score is reasonably restrained, albeit not hugely distinctive. Large doses of highland pipes and fiddles abound which at least provide some decent flavour; it's set in Scotland... hang on, isn't that where The Last Legion was set? Of course, there are a few decent action licks, in a stolid, marching about kind of way although Out Swords! (which sounds just a bit naughty to me) has some surprisingly quasi-atonal violin skittering over the top of otherwise rather plain brass and percussion. Touches like this push it above average, just.

Gnomeo & Juliet - James Newton Howard & Elton John

The 2011 Oscar for "Film that looks least promising from its poster, concept description and trailer" must surely go to Gnomeo & Juliet, from the producing hand of Elton John and husband, David Furnish. Romeo & Juliet with gnomes. But, of course. Just what we always wanted. However, reviews have been pretty favourable and I might just about persuade the boyfriend to see it. Maybe. Surprisingly, most of John's contributions are from his back catalogue rather than new songs, although an ill advised redo of Crocodile Rock with Nelly Furtado is, well, ill advised. James Newton Howard and, erm, accomplice(?) Chris Bacon contribute a few score tracks to the album. It's fairly typical Howard stuff, but not really a patch on his previous animated adventures, although the titular track is fairly engaging.

The Mechanic - Mark Isham

Mark Isham has started releasing scores on his own label, the imaginatively titled Mark Isham Music, starting off with The Mechanic which, I have to confess, is one of his "oh bloody hell, why can't he stick to jazz and not action films" scores. It even comes in three versions. One short, "album" version, a complete version and a special edition which comes with a hand engraved model of his toilet seat (possible lie). Frankly the full version is a bit long but the suite format of the "album" version is interesting enough action/suspense stuff. It does have the benefit of not sounding like Remote Control, which is a start, but it's quite stark and dense stuff so isn't quite enjoyable in any meaningful sense, but is expertly written for what it is, just something of a tough listen to want to put on too regularly.