Ghost Rider (2007)

Composed by Christopher Young

In the pre-MCU days of superhero films, most Marvel adaptations to the big screen seemed to come from its “Knights” line-up. These were characters that normally wouldn’t be seen around the Avengers, and they were often urban crime-fighters. One of the more unique characters among this grouping is Ghost Rider, a man with a flaming skull who rides a motorcycle. In the movie Johnny Blaze (Nicholas Cage) struck a deal with the Mephisto (aka the Devil  played by Peter Fonda) to save his father from a mortal illness (it goes about as well as you would except with such a deal). Years later it’s time for Blaze to fulfill his end of the bargain. As the Ghost Rider he has to stop Mephisto’s errant son Blackheart from acquiring a contract worth thousands of souls.

It’s not a great movie, but it is fun and looks better in light of the overly-derivative superhero fare we’ve been getting over the past few years. One of its surprising strong suits is Christopher Young’s score. But perhaps it should not be a surprise, as Young is an accomplished horror film composer working on a horror-laced superhero film. For the project Young sought to synthesize three genres into one. There would be gothic elements for the supernatural elements, industrial rock for the cool factor of a fiery skull-headed motorcyclist, and western for the geographical setting.

Troy (2004)

Composed by James Horner

In the short-lived early oughties resurgence of historical epics (undone by the dual box-office disappointments of this film and moreso Alexander), Wolfgang Peterson selected the ancient Siege of Troy for a film project. The movie seeks to be more realistic by ditching the mythological aspects in favor of a pure tale of Greeks against Trojans. Paris (Orlando Bloom) runs off with Spartan king Menelaus’ hot wife Helen (Dianne Kruger). Conquest-crazy King Agamemnon (Brian Cox) takes advantage of this outrage to gather a massive Greek force and assault Troy. The lead heroes of both sides are the Greek rumored demigod Achilles (Brad Pitt) and the Trojan’s Hector (Eric Bana). It’s not a bad movie and has plenty of great fight scenes (even if the armor is ridiculously useless).

The story of Troy’s musical score is one of the more controversial ones. Peterson had chosen Gabriel Yared to compose it and the composer approached the project with gusto, working on it for a full year. To create authenticity he hired a Bulgarian choir and Macedonian singer Tanja Tzarovska. Then the test screening came. Yared’s music had not been fully composed yet and the sound mix was not completed either. The test audience complained that the music was too loud and old-fashioned. Instead of giving Yared and he sound editor time to tweak and perfect the music and sound mix, the studio asked for his replacement. Previously enthusiastic about Yared’s musical choices, Wolfgang Peterson caved under pressure and booted the composer from the film.

Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)

Composed by Ennio Morricone

Once Upon a Time in the West was the fourth of Sergio Leone’s westerns, but was the first to separate from the Dollars Trilogy where Clint Eastwood achieved stardom as the Man With No Name. Once Upon a Time in the West shows how far Leone had come as a director. Indeed he seemed to get more ambitious with each subsequent Western and this film is a very different breed from his preceding repertoire. It still has its quirky moments, but the plot in general is more somber and optimistic at the same time. Jill McBain (Claudia Cardinale) arrives at a far western town to live with her new husband. It turns out he and his children were murdered, assumedly by a gang of bandits led by Cheyenne (Jason Robards). The matter is complicated by the involvement of the mysterious Man with a Harmonica (Charles Bronson) and an approaching railway which hires the services of Frank (Henry Fonda, who shocked many by playing against type as a cold-blooded villain). Jill and some of the other characters try to figure out why the McBains are murdered. Overall it’s a great movie and it might be my favorite spaghetti western (I’m still undecided).

Showing supreme confidence in regular collaborator Ennio Morricone, Leone actually had the composer write and conduct his score before filming began! This unusual order of production somehow worked off splendidly, perhaps because Leone would sometimes play recordings of the music as the actors performed. As for albums the only English-language release is still, for some reason the 40-minute transfer from the LP album (whose cover is featured in this post). The expanded score which I review is the expanded 2005 Italian edition. I have opted to use Google-translated titles so those who’ve seen the film can better connect the cues to their respective scenes.

Hang ‘Em High (1968)

Composed by Dominic Frontiere

Having finally achieved stardom through Spaghetti Westerns, Clint Eastwood returned to Hollywood. It was fitting that his first film back would be a western that borrowed revisionist elements from the Spaghetti Western, from starker violence to moral ambiguity. In Hang ‘Em High Eastwood is Jed Cooper, a cattle driver who unwittingly buys stolen cattle from a murderer. A posse, believing him guilty of murder and theft, lynches him. Rescued by a marshal, Jed Cooper, a former lawman himself, is made a marshal by judge Adam Fenton (Pat Hingle playing a fictionalized version of the real-life Hanging Judge Isaac Parker). Eastwood uses his new status to hunt down and bring in the men who lynched him, but starts to butt heads with Fenton, who liberally applies the death by hanging sentence to criminals without any chance at appeal.

Another element inspired by the success of the Spaghetti western was Dominic Frontiere’s score. In fact Frontiere was told to emulate Ennio Morricone’s revolutionary music. He does so, though not to the same levels of quirkiness and bombast. Still, there is Mexican-style material that appears throughout, even though unlike Sergio Leone’s Italian westerns there is not really a lot of Mexicans in the movie itself. Hang ‘Em High is anchored by a main theme with two components. Frontiere’s suite arrangement of the theme opens and closes the album, with liberal other interpretations appearing throughout. The main melody is a heroic western theme that definitely sounds like something Morricone would dream up. It actually takes a while to appear in the movie, not coming out until Jed Cooper sets out on his first mission as US Marshal (“I’ll Get ‘Em Myself”). The theme appears in more restrained fashion on harmonica in “Bordello.”

X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)

X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)

Composed by John Powell

The second X-Men movie had teased telekinetic Jean Grey’s transition into the incredibly powerful Phoenix. Fans highly anticipated an adaptation of one of the comics’ greatest storytelling. Then Bryan Singer, who had been managing the franchise, ditched it when he got the chance to direct Superman Returns. Brett Rattner took his place and turned out a passable, but underwhelming sequel. The movie is closer to 100 minutes than two hours, a mistake when it heavily expands the cast of characters (and consequently gives a couple of them very unsatisfying pay-offs). The movie sees Jean Grey return as Phoenix. Though she wields much more power, her mental state is unstable and she’s convinced to join Magneto’s now much larger Brotherhood of Mutants. As if this isn’t bad enough, a scientist has developed a “cure” which can remove the X-gene from mutants and render them normal. The movie’s main problem is that it adapts one of the most epic stories from the comics and renders it small-scale, as Phoenix never comes close to dishing out the mayhem she did in the original tale (her moment of crossing the line is vaporizing a house instead of a planet, for example).

When Singer left, he took regular editing and composing buddy John Ottman with him. John Powell, one of the more successful graduates of Hans Zimmers’ Media Ventures, stepped into his place. As Ottman did with Michael Kamen’s work on the first film, Powell jettisoned his predecessor’s themes. While this continued to undermine the musical continuity, the end result is pretty worth it. Powell avoids the flaws of Kamen and Ottman’s entries, which had unrecognizable or underrepresented themes and stretches of tedium. The themes for this score are obvious and repeated, and there is nary a dull moment. Where Powell excels above the other composers is his action pieces. Kamen and Ottman failed to create true action highlights. Powell, on the other hand, goes all-out in this area, creating multiple layers of frenetic action with liberal quotes of the themes. Powell’s non-action music also manages to grip the listener’s attention, with obvious sustained thematic statements and interesting instrumentation for the moodier underscore.

X2: X-Men United (2003)

Composed by John Ottman

The first X-Men movie was a solid success. It was the sequel, however, that garnered true praise from critics and fans. It was even considered a major leap forward for superhero cinema, though it would be eclipsed shortly by Spider-Man 2. X2 focuses less on mutants battling each other (though there are still moments). Instead all mutants are targeted by Colonel William Stryker. Using Xavier’s mind-enhancing Cerebro, he plans to wipe out all mutants at once. As it turns out Stryker also has a connection with Wolverine’s past. The movie is pretty good. Many of the characters still don’t have a lot to do, but the full two hour running time allows for a bit more focus on figures besides Wolverine, Magneto, and Professor X. In particular there’s also a subplot about Jean Grey developing higher levels of power (portending her transition into Phoenix).

This time director Bryan Singer was able to bring his friend John Ottman onboard. Up to this point Ottman had done mostly horror and thriller scores (including Singer’s masterpiece Usual Suspects). This would be his first of several superhero movies. Many film score reviewers have actually criticized his efforts in this genre, finding his material lackluster and this primary themes underwhelming (more on the latter point in a bit). Personally there is some merit to these criticisms. Ottman is not just a composer, but an editor as well. Since Singer gave him both jobs on his movies, he was able to line up picture and score with incredible accuracy. On the plus side this allows the music to move smoothly with the action on screen. The downside is that Ottman sometimes seems so focused on this aspect that he fails to give his themes extended performances outside of the credits. Also, some of the material bridging the highlights isn’t particularly strong, focusing on basic underscore without much melody (“Magneto’s Old Tricks” in particular is awesome highs punctuated by dull lows).

X-Men (2000)

Composed by Michael Kamen

X-Men came out at an uncertain time of the superhero film genre. Up to that point most comic book movies had been critical and/or commercial flops. Marvel in particular was behind other comic book companies in getting its properties to the big screen, with only the widely panned Howard the Duck and the cult hit Blade to its name. Bryan Singer’s X-Men proved that Marvel could successfully transfer its popular characters to film, but preceded the true growth of the genre in cinema that was sparked by Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man films, Batman Begins, and Iron Man. It’s a fine, even good film, but suffers from thin characterization for most of its cast. Some of the sequels would redeem some of the underdeveloped characters, particularly shape shifter Mystique.  It’s the first of a long-running film franchise that saw everything from legitimate masterpieces (Days of Future Past, Logan) to just plain good entries (X2: X-Men United) to decent entertainment (X-Men: Apocalypse) to absolute dreck (Origins: Wolverine, Dark Phoenix).

In the world of the X-Men mutants are emerging. Though they are the next step of human evolution, they are feared by society because of their wide array of super-powers. Led by telepath Professor X, the X-Men seek to help mutants control their powers and oppose both evil mutants and persecuting forces among normal humans. The plot kicks off when teenage girl Rogue, sporting energy and ability-sapping powers, almost kills her boyfriend during a make-out session. She runs away and finds herself with Logan/Wolverine (a star-making role for Hugh Jackman), a Canadian with partial amnesia who can grow claws out of his hands. They finds themselves sucked into a war between the X-Men (led by Patrick Stewart’s Professor X) and the militant Brotherhood (headed by Ian McKellen’s Magneto).

Scorpion King (2002)

Composed by John Debney

2002 saw the release of WWF (soon to be WWE) wrestler the Rock’s first starring role. Eventually he would use his real name Dwayne Johnson in an attempt to cement his identity as an actor rather than professional wrestler. The Scorpion King is a sword-and-sorcery spin-off of the Mummy films. Thousands of years in the past an eastern horde under Memnon steamrolls through the ancient world, winning battle after battle thanks to the help of a powerful, clairvoyant sorcerer. Mathyus, the titular character, is a mercenary of an almost-dead ethnicity noted for their incredible martial prowess. He’s hired to find and kill the sorcerer (revealed to be a woman named Cassandra and played by Kelly Hu). It’s not a great film, but it’s a fun way to kill a couple hours. The Rock was still an active professional wrestler at the time so the movie plays into him as a beefy action hero. In fact composer John Debney would incorporate the style of the WWF’s entrance themes in a couple of his cues.

Debney blends rock with bombastic ancient adventure styling, and surprisingly with no disjointed effect. In its “subtler” moments the rock appears as a percussive drumline underneath wailing trumpets, but it can also overtake the entire score, such as in the opener “Boo!.” Despite the ancient setting on-screen, the blasting guitars seem appropriate when paired with a still-young Dwayne Johnson. Personally I prefer the more straightforward orchestral sections, which do become dominant by the halfway point. This material is what’s expected: epic horns, woman wailing, and ethnic percussion. The rock-heavy cues are mostly placed in the first act of the film, when Mathyus hasn’t acquired his more noble motivations and audiences are still processing the presence of the Rock in a Hollywood film.

Prince of Egypt (1999)

Composed by Hans Zimmer

The Prince of Egypt was Dreamworks’ ambitious attempt to break into the animated film market. While Disney adapted fairy tales and historical legends, Dreamworks went for one of the world’s most famous religious tales, the Exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt. Whoever’s reading this probably knows the story, but I’ll summarize it anyways. To control the exploding Hebrew population, the Egyptians enslave them for several hundred years. When the pharaoh attempts population control via the selected murder of firstborn sons, a mother sends baby Moses out onto the Nile in a basket. Incredibly he is found and adopted by the pharaoh’s daughter, thus growing up to be a prince. He eventually learns his true heritage, and then is tasked by God to be His messenger. God wants his people freed, and if Pharaoh Ramses, Moses’ adoptive brother, refuses, then there will be grave consequences.

Prince of Egypt is a wonderful and surprisingly sometimes forgotten animated feature. What makes it stand out in the various cinematic adaptations of Exodus is the portrayal of Moses and Ramses’ relationship as brothers. Commonly portrayed as enemies even before Moses learns the truth, this movie shows them tragically separated by circumstances. But this review is of course about the music, which fare well against the famous Disney soundtracks of the 90s. Hans Zimmer, who had years earlier composed the animated hit Lion King, took on scoring duties while Stephan Schwartz took charge of the songs. Apparently Zimmer was nervous about scoring a story that held great significance for three major monotheistic religions. As a Christian myself I have to say that he need not have worried, because I think his music wonderfully hits the right emotions for the Exodus event.

Alien vs. Predator: Requiem (2007)

Composed by Brian Tyler

Although it was hardly well-regarded, the action-horror cross-over Alien vs. Predator still made enough money to garner a sequel. The first film is passable entertainment but Requiem suffers from the fact that most of the action takes place in a dark, rainy environment, making it difficult to see the new alien and predator designs. The characters are wafer-thin and there’s a certain maternity ward scene that was just a little too much for me. The film itself bombed. Not a failure is Brian Tyler’s score, all of which can be found on the soundtrack album. This is from around the time that Brian Tyler started getting the opportunity to create big action scores. The actual album presentation is horrendous, but I will talk about that later. First the actual music.

Tyler does a good job of using the style of the Alien and Predator soundtracks, especially the former, though he or somebody in charge decided that none of the franchises’ preexisting themes would be used. One of Horner’s motifs from Aliens does appear, but not much. One cue in which it materializes is “Coprocloakia”. A variation on the Predator theme plays in “Predator Arrival” and “Power Struggle”, with the percussive elements remaining, but the core theme replaced by a variation of Tyler’s Requiem theme. A couple tracks, “National Guard pt. 1” and “Taking Sides,” (the latter a quite good 13-minute piece) use a motif heavily reminiscent of Ripley’s theme from Alien Resurrection. The latter half of “Buddy’s New Buddy” has a call-back to Elliot Goldenthal’s dissonant strings from Alien 3’s “Candles in the Wind.” These are nice references, but it is frustrating that Tyler wouldn’t or was not allowed to actually make the franchise themes clash. At least he finds a way to reference them whereas Harald Kloser ignored them completely for the first AVP.