Additional Music by Don Harper and Paul Linford

Orchestrations by Gordon Goodwin, Tom Calderaro, and Trevor Rabin

Produced by Jerry Bruckheimer

Release Date: November 16, 2004

        Walt Disney Records

     National Treasure is an interesting film in that it follows what looks like the typical Bruckheimer action movie formula, but this time in a PG-rated film. Is this the case of the powers-that-be deciding to make a “family-friendly” action movie? It’ll be interesting to see just what has been toned down for this film to earn it a PG rating, and how it’ll fare without having the kind of violence usually associated with these films that generally push them into PG-13 or R rated fare. And while the critics have been absolutely lambasting this movie, word of mouth has been positive so far (at least in what has been coming to this  particular set of ears).

     Trevor Rabin finally hits a score that has actually landed on my radar, after the last few years filled with the likes of Kangaroo Jack, Torque, and Exorcist: The Beginning. Rabin has garnered a reputation for being one of the most generic of the Media Ventures composers (though I think Klaus Badelt still tops him) and that’s too bad because a lot of Rabin’s scores have some golden nuggets of ideas buried within, and had more time been spent developing these, it could really bolster his works. Even so, he occasionally proves enjoyable, and I appreciated the typical Media Ventures bents on tired genres (like American Outlaws), that prove to be something different for that genre, if not for the style itself.

     For National Treasure, Rabin is still solidly in the Media Ventures sound (something that we can probably admit will never change at this point), with only shades of him trying anything different with it. The opening suite is nice and misleading in presenting a cool main theme that sounded to me like the Signs main theme twisted around into action fare. It gives the music a mysterious, almost other-worldly feel that gives the impression of Rabin actually giving some musical weight to the film’s cool premise. Unfortunately (and this is where the misleading part comes in), the rest of the music contains the expected mixture of The Rock and John Powell’s work on the Bourne franchise, though without the inventiveness or the all-out fun that made those scores work. Outside of some cool string work, there is not much to this score that hasn’t been treaded over countless times before. So even with the promise of the opening suite, National Treasure is not Rabin’s breakout score.

     If you can’t get enough of the Media Ventures style, even in robo-mood such as this one, by all means pick it up. But the last few years have seen some great twists on the tried-and-true style and those are far better efforts that are worth your money.

01 - National Treasure Suite

02 - Ben

03 - Finding Charlotte

04 - Library of Congress

05 - Preparation Montage

06 - Arrival at National Archives

07 - The Chase

08 - Declaration of Independence

09 - Foot Chase

10 - Spectacle Discovery

11 - Interrogation

12 - Treasure

Total Running Time: 38:45