Conducted by David Newman

Performed by The London Metropolitan Orchestra

Produced by David Newman

Release Date: June 4, 1996

               Milan Records
 

     Billy Zane starred in the title role of this purple-clad superhero who has seen publication in one form or another since 1936. Ultimately, the film didn't perform well at the all-critical box office, and the Phantom had to be content to return to the newspaper stands which spawned him. The remnants of this film can be found in video stores everywhere, and in this soundtrack album from composer David Newman.

     In my view, it's a thankless job to tackle any kind of scoring duty in the cluttered superhero genre. After all, for all the comic book movies out there, does anything come close to approaching the work that John Williams did for Superman? Or how about Danny Elfman's inspired brilliance for the Caped Crusader? Sure, Jerry Goldsmith may have gotten close with Supergirl and The Shadow, but the latest entries with the X-Men franchise, and even Spider-Man and the Hulk (from Elfman himself no less) haven't been much of anything that would be considering truly exciting, and especially not to be considered the classics that Superman and Batman are. And though the Phantom is not a totally conventional superhero in that vein, it is still into this world that David Newman stepped into when he agreed to score the film.

     Over the years, I've enjoyed Newman's work in scores like Ice Age and Galaxy Quest. Both have represented some wonderfully quirky action scoring, which helps to set it apart from the stylistic leanings of other composers. Still, both of those two are comedy films, so it was with interest that I picked up this score, hoping to enjoy the evolution that led up to those titles. While the style is closely reminiscent for The Phantom, the quirkiness is toned down and Newman shoots for more of a conventional action score. For the most part his action scoring easily adapts though the music sidesteps a bit into cartoony mode with tracks eight and nine. It quickly recovers with The Museum, especially though the addition of the male chorus that is dishearteningly underused, though Newman was probably saving it for the latter portion of the score when everything is usually beefed up.

     The main theme, while solid, is nothing remarkable and it tends to lower the enjoyment factor a notch. It's a theme that is appropriate, but not thrilling. It does a good job in projecting the nobility of the Phantom, but doesn't offer much to more. Since some of the cues follow a general style of build-up that reminds me of Alan Silvestri's The Mummy Returns, that serves to make the theme work even less. Still, the use of some exotic instruments (the like of which we usually hear coming from James Horner) help prop up these cues and imbues the score with a unique sound.

     A solid action score, The Phantom doesn't hold up to other, more superior, scores of this type, but fans of Newman or the film itself will probably find enough to like to warrant this as a bargain-bin buy.