| Broken Arrow |
| Composed by Hans Zimmer |
|
|
Conducted by Bruce Fowler and D. Harper Release Date: 1996 |
Purchase this CD at:
|
|
The Media Ventures sound as typified in such scores as Gladiator, The Rock, and The Peacemaker, has largely fallen by the wayside in recent years. The last big score to really imbue the style was Gladiator, and most of the newer works from Media Ventures have consisted of more electronically heavy thriller scores like Spy Game (from Harry Gregson-Williams), Klaus Badelt’s lightly flavored The Time Machine and K-19, along with the bouncy scores to Dreamwork’s CGI line of films from John Powell and Harry Gregson-Williams. While such titles have been more or less enjoyable, it is always a pleasure to go back and hear the beginnings of this style of scoring; a style that has evolved quite a lot over the past decade. Broken Arrow is interesting in this regard as it is one of the early Zimmer scores. As such, it echoes a lot of what would come later, while at the same time having a signature that is all its own. I have never seen the film, but the tingling bells which appear almost from the very beginning (which comprises one of the few primary themes), give it a Christmas time feeling, almost like something out of a Manheim Steamroller album. Out of all of Zimmerdom, it is quite a lovely theme and the Christmas feel offsets the general melancholy nature of the theme in a way that balances it out well. The other themes work just as well in the context of the score, but in the end come off as just generic Zimmer themes which have better counterparts in later scores. This typifies the biggest problem that I have with this score. Basically it feels like a retread, even though it came before pretty much everything else (though I am just now listening to it much later after the fact). Certain themes and musical phrases could easily segue into the more enjoyable aspects of cues from The Rock or The Peacemaker, and this serves as a distraction more than anything else. The action music especially suffers from this fault as it’s not really anything special to begin with, and though there are one or two moments that possess a concept not found in the later scores (Greed comes off as the best of these), the action music here seems listless and has no overriding direction to it. Broken Arrow is not a bad score by any means. If you’ve never been a fan of Media Ventures, this will not change your mind. However, if you’ve generally enjoyed those titles that I’ve been referencing, then this would make a nice addition to your collection. Just do like I did and pick it up at a used CD store for a few bucks. *** |
| Track Listing - Total Running Time: 59:08 | |
|
|
