Conducted by Geoffrey Alexander

Performed by the London Symphony Orchestra

Produced by Trevor Jones

Release Date: July 29, 2003

        Varese Sarabande Records
 

     The return of Sean Connery to a big-screen action hero role (as Allan Quatermain no less) is to be found in the comic-book-turned-hopeful-film-franchise, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Opening to mixed reviews, the film didn’t perform as well as had been hoped, and though it has its supporters, it remained tied to the realm of the summer popcorn flick.

     For most action scores of this nature (especially given the comic-book origins of the story), a main theme is almost a must. Take a look at the successful scores from this genre and compare them to the ones that are lackluster, and more often than not, the lack of a good main theme is apparent (for instance, pit Superman against the X-Men). For The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, not only does Jones not give us a rousing main theme, he doesn’t even to give much of anything musically to the seven heroes (Quartermain does get some African-influenced music to represent him in certain cues). The lack of thematic development is disheartening, especially given all the characters running about that would have made a leitmotif approach quite interesting.

     At least the score does succeed in making up for the lack of themes by harnessing all the power the orchestra can muster and channeling it into a series of intense action cues. Make no mistake, this is no tongue-in-cheek effort. And even without the underlying workings of themes or motifs, those cues are quite enjoyable and tend to give the score life in the moments where they come together and really hit their stride. The excellent brass and string performances go a long way, and these cues are always a welcome respite from the generally bland quieter moments that fill in the gaps between.

     The release method for this album is probably what will do the most damage to sale numbers. Not to be released in stores (in the U.S. at least), the album is available as a series of MP3 files through iTunes for ten dollars. Not a bad deal really, until you figure in that to access iTunes you have to have a Macintosh system running OS X. That cuts down the numbers considerably. Thankfully, Varèse Sarabande is selling the CD version (with much better sound quality) through their website and other specialty outlets on the Internet.