Back on track today with a review of the upcoming Wanted.

Fans of the Russian vampire films Night Watch and Day Watch will have to wait for that series’ final film another year, but director Timur Bekmambetov makes his American film debut this summer.  Wanted stars James McAvoy and Angelina Jolie and has the look of an updated Tarantino film and a plot that seems like something we have seen before: ie., young man finds out his recently murdered father was a deadly assassin.  It will remain to be seen if the Hollywood style of filmmaking that Bekmambetov brought to Russian film will see, as fresh in its American version or might appear anachronistic.  Danny Elfman provides a song and a score to this high-octane action thriller.

The disc opens with the song “The Little Things” written and performed by Elfman in a throwback to the 1980s with harder guitars here and a cross between Robert Palmer and an angry Sting sound.  It is off to the score proper with “Success Montage” that is back to a purer Elfman-esque sound but now the orchestral lines are more defined with a fascinating melodic idea that gets tossed about the orchestra to explore instrumental colors in a way that we have not heard from Elfman in a long time.  This bubbling minimalist undergirding to melodic ideas moves into a quite advanced string writing that mixes with these colors in amazing ways against the kind of intriguing drum machine sounds the composer used in his Men in Black scores.  There is more electronic design in this score than we have heard from the composer creating a kind of angry pulse.  The rhythmic style recalls his score for Planet of the Apes but now fully synthesized and written to be a unique contribution to the overall texture.  Choral work, a low-mixed chant-like sound in “Fraternity Suite,” also recalls some of the composer’s early horror scores (think Nightbreed).

The darker sensibilities of Elfman’s style are on full display here and the chant interpolations are an interesting touch.  The string writing is truly amazing, among the best we have heard from the composer.  There are moments as well, “Wesley’s Office Life,” where Elfman melds a sound like Thomas Newman often employs in urban settings into that urban MIB and pop/rock guitar style.  Unlike so many other scores that cannot decide if they will be a rock electronic score or use an orchestra, Elfman manages to superbly walk that fine line.  The shifts in sounds works so well that they appear effortless and when they collide for big action pieces (“Rats”) none of it feels or sounds out of place.  Plenty of the composer’s signature arpeggios are tossed in for good measure to give the score some personal flavor.

Elfman has another anticipated score this summer, Hellboy 2, but fans will definitely want to pick up this release which may turn out to be the better of the three scores by the composer for film so far this year.  It is one of the best action scores of the year.  Lakeshore's playing time is not quite 50 minutes here but it is a well-crafted score presentation.  Welcome back Danny!

Headed out to seee the third Spiderman film today.  It is actually a fairly good film with a bit more comedy in it than the previous two installments suggesting a greater comfortability of characterizations.  Some of this is also due in part to the physical representations of larger themes by each of the characters in the storyline.  There are a few places where the film drags and could have used a little trimming but otherwise it is good popcorn fare with a wonderful Bruce Campbell cameo--Stan Lee's is pretty good too.

As to the music I would be surprised if there was a score release.  If there is, it would probably be interesting to see what Christopher Young wrote that did not end up in the film.  The list of individual tracks by Danny Elfman, John Debney, or a combination of the two with Young appear mixed in with the songs licensed, but mostly nonexistent in the film itself.  Elfman's main theme is used throughout, almost consistently, in the film that it can get distracting at times.  Integration of sequences with the music then becomes more diffuse and less helpful in creating dramatic flow or musical continuity thorughout the picture---yeah, I know most people are busy being wowed by the CGI.

I'll leave it to the true film score geeks to categorize and identify every shred of music in the film.  It's one of those times where I enjoyed the film music in the film, just too often I was conscious that it seemed to have both come from someone else's pen and movie.  Too bad, because Young deserved better.  So I wonder if Raimi has now ticked off two of Hollywood's better composers!

The new Harry Potter trailer appeared as well.  Though some of the music in the trailer sounds like it is new, I have to wonder if the studio will get nervous and track in thematic threads from the previous four films.

Is it me, or is getting to easy to just cut and paste everything these days?

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Finally had a chance to hear Shore's score for the kid friendly The Last Mimzy.  It is a bright little film score that has its good moments.  There are some gestures and musical moments in the score that sound a lot like Shore was being asked to mimic a temp track using music by John Williams.  So for those hungry for a little of the older maestro, this may fit the bill for now.