One thing that I enjoyed about this film was
that Gary Sinise finally got to go "where no man has gone before."
For those of you who haven't seen Apollo 13, his character was stranded back
on Earth (which turned out to be a good thing actually), and while the
opening of this movie had me convinced that he would be stuck again, he
finally does make it into space.
Basically, I did enjoy this movie somewhat. The
premise is interesting, even if the ending is a total rip-off of both 2001:
A Space Odyssey and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I thought
some of the characterizations were pretty good, and the catastrophe that
occurs to the rescue team on their approach to Mars was neat. However, this
is one of those movies that has too many bad points to outweigh the good,
and while I'll probably watch it again after it comes out on DVD, I don't
plan on adding it to my collection.
Morricone's score for this film has found itself
to be controversial in the same way that Goldsmith's The Mummy was to
the film score community. A lot of the reviews that I have read have pretty
much blasted this work, and some of the reasons are valid. It is not a
conventional score by any means, and Morricone doesn't seem to have a clue
on when and how to use electronic sounds in his music. As far as I know,
this is his first sci-fi outing, and sometimes it shows. Some of the cues
sound like they were culled directly from 60s television shows like Lost
in Space and Time Tunnel. Another oddity is that while there is
an impressive sounding choir present in this score, Morricone utilizes a
synth choir at one point. Why he didn't use the real thing is a mystery to
me. Probably the worst thing of all is the fact that the CD is sequenced
completely out of order which makes it annoying, especially since the ending
piece is located on the first third of the disc and is a definite conclusion
to the score.
That said, while the movie had more bad points
than good points, I feel that this score is just the opposite. The fact that
it is an unconventional sci-fi score just really appealed to be. The
style basically feels like the classical pieces from 2001 at times,
but it still works well. I especially liked the bass beat that signifies
tense situations. While some people have expressed dismay over the organ
that accompanies it in Towards the Unknown, I thought it worked
really well. The music underscoring the different tragedies that befall the
characters during the course of the film is also very powerful and, when
combined with one of the few themes that is actually present, it is really
good.
This is one of those CDs that is really going to
appeal to some people and completely turn off the rest. You probably need to
see the film before plunking down your cash on this one. It goes without
saying that it is not Morricone's best work, but for those to whom the score
will appeal to, it will make a very nice addition to their soundtrack
collection. ****
