For a CD with a running time of over fifty
minutes, it breaks my heart (yeah, yeah, I know) that only fourteen minutes
of that consist of John Debney's score. Most of the CD is taken up by a
collection of songs that may or may not have anything to do with the film.
Since I haven't seen the movie, and neither do I plan to, I really
can't comment on their validity. What I'm really interested in are the two
suites on the last couple of tracks which comprise all of the score that has
been released.
In addition to Debney's score, Danny Elfman
composed the title theme for the film. This is the second score that I've
come across lately with the Big E contributing a small part to a film (the
other being Army of Darkness). I'm
not sure what the story is behind this, but it really doesn't matter.
Elfman's quirky style comes to the forefront with opening of the first
suite, and it is slightly reminiscent of his theme to
Men in Black. Debney capitalizes on this
style and manages to keep everything formed around that opening theme, which
works out quite nicely.
The music is quite light and even bouncy at
times, and there are some interesting styles that come up every now and then
that add a lot of fun little cues, but in the end, with only
fourteen minutes of score available, there is really not that much that can
happen. Of course, this may be a good thing, since unless there are an
abundance of more interesting cues available, a full score album may have
overstayed its welcome after the first fourteen minutes.
Unless the songs on this CD are of interest to
you, or you're such a rabid Elfman or Debney fan that you just have to have
every piece of music that they have ever composed, there is really no reason
to pick this one up. It's pretty good as far as comedy scores go, but is it
really worth the price of a full CD for two short suites?
**
