| Windtalkers |
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Composed by James Horner |
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Conducted by James Horner Orchestrated by J.A.C. Redford, Randy Kerber, James Horner, Steven R. Bernstein, and Carl Johnson Produced by Simon Rhodes and James Horner Release Date: 2002 |
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I’ve considered myself to be pretty forgiving when it comes to the scores of James Horner. While many have been disappointed by his output in recent years, I’ve found it to be somewhat enjoyable, with the occasional gem here and there. Lately however, Horner’s output has really started to fold over on top of itself in a way that even I have come to find annoying. Take his previous score, A Beautiful Mind. Many were disappointed that it wasn’t more original, but I found that his orchestrations, along with the wonderful performance by Charlotte Church, made for a fairly good score. Unfortunately, while his following work for the film Windtalkers continues strongly, it’s not that much of an improvement. Right from the beginning, Windtalkers sounds like a sequel to any previously composed Horner score one could possible imagine from the past decade. All of the infamous “Hornerisms” are here, including the short 4-note motif used to characterize all sorts of different incarnations of evil, last heard in Enemy at the Gates. It pops up before the opening track has even reached the halfway mark (though it takes Horner almost three whole tracks before he references it again). The themes are good, and Horner does take advantage of them, but there’s just something that gets in the way. After so many years (and so many scores), Horner’s themes come across as a simple mishmash of different ideas. As a side note, there seems to be a brief reference to the main theme from Where Eagles Dare in track nine, though it sounds like it is more like a tribute than a rip-off. Even more upsetting is his approach to scoring some of the action from the film, especially with the track Marine Assault. With Steven Spielberg’s musical direction to John Williams for Saving Private Ryan, a standard had pretty much been set for all serious war films coming out since that time, and it’s nice to see some actual scoring going on for the battle sequences. Still, isolated from the film, the cue does not come across well. Horner composes the segment with an opening that uses a heavily dissonant technique. I found this dissonance to be aggravating. It seems like a good cue, but with "renegade" performers doing their own thing in the background, it completely ruins any musical cohesiveness that it would otherwise have. Thankfully, the track gets better as it moves along, but those moments still always threaten on the horizon. But those problems aside, is there anything good to be had out of Windtalkers? Well, it isn’t a complete waste of time. The whole score is dark and atmospheric and Horner does a good job with that style, though at times it can get bogged down. The percussion elements are handled quite well and lend a strong military air to the music. He also imbues the score with a flute instrument that is heavily Native American-ish, giving the music some much needed flavoring. The more uplifting cues are handled well, especially in Horner’s use of brass for the heroic moments. The string section is also put to good use here, and the middle portion of the score has a nice flow to it and contains the kind of emotional underscoring that Horner has perfected over the years. Windtalkers isn’t a complete failure, and it has plenty of moments that can please the listener who is in the right state of mind to enjoy this score (namely, those who aren’t critiquing every little note to see if they’ve heard it before). Still, with the whole sense of déjà vu and the awful dissonant scoring in track seven, this film continues the downward spiral that has been James Horner’s latest scores. While one could hope for a return to the thrilling (and novel) scoring of Horner’s period back in the 80s, I for one don’t see that happening. So get used to it folks. This is what we can now expect from Horner for the foreseeable future. ***1/2 |
| Track Listing - Total Running Time: 66:55 | |
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