Archive
ANGELS & DEMONS – Hans Zimmer
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The second film based on author Dan Brown’s enormously popular series of novels about the adventures of Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon, Angels & Demons is actually a prequel to the popular and controversial The Da Vinci Code. Tom Hanks returns as Langdon, who becomes embroiled in another labyrinthine plot of mysteries and clues following the death of the Pope. Before the conclave to choose a his successor can begin, the four senior bishops in line for the position are kidnapped by a group claiming to be the ancient cult of the Illuminati, who want revenge against the Vatican for centuries of persecution at the hands of the catholic church. Read more…
FROST/NIXON – Hans Zimmer
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
From a modern vantage point it’s remarkably easy to look back at the events of 1974, to the presidency of Richard Nixon and the Watergate scandal and forget just what a momentous moment in American political history it was. The aftermath of scandal – which included incidences of campaign fraud, political espionage and sabotage, illegal break-ins, tax fraud and illegal wiretapping – were far-reaching, and changed the political landscape of the nation forever. Three years after Nixon’s resignation he was interviewed by the British TV journalist and satirist David Frost for the show ‘Frost on America’, and the resulting encounter between the men became one of the most notorious moments in television history when, during the interviews, Nixon made a tacit admission of guilt regarding his role in Watergate, despite having been officially absolved of responsibility and pardoned by President Gerald Ford. This fascinating series of encounters between these two remarkably intelligent and astute men was turned into a play by screenwriter Peter Morgan starring Frank Langella as Nixon and Michael Sheen as Frost. The play was hugely successful, and was nominated for several Tony Awards, and has now been turned into a feature film by acclaimed director Ron Howard, with Langella and Sheen reprising their roles on the big screen. Read more…
MADAGASCAR: ESCAPE 2 AFRICA – Hans Zimmer
Original Review by Clark Douglas
Yikes, what on earth happened with this album? “Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa” may very well be the worst score that composer Hans Zimmer has ever been involved with (I hesitate to say “written”, as the score was created by the usual gang of Remote Control affiliates). The film is a sequel to the popular Dreamworks animated film “Madagascar”, which was also scored by Zimmer and co.
That disappointing album featured some pleasant yet insubstantial scoring alongside some dull pop songs and a nice performance of John Barry’s “Born Free”. That album was bliss compared to what Zimmer has produced this time around. Things actually start out well enough, with a typical little action piece called “Once Upon a Time in Africa”. The score never hits that level of satisfactory banality again. Read more…
THE DARK KNIGHT – Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The Dark Knight, the second film in the new rebooted Batman franchise, is a truly great motion picture. Since Christopher Nolan picked up the twitching remnants of the series from out of the hands of Joel Schumacher in 2005’s Batman Begins, the character has again become a cinematic force, free of the gaudy neon excesses of Batman & Robin, and back to the dark, gritty, tortured origins people like Bob Kane and Frank Miller envisaged.
Christian Bale again returns as the caped crusader, who this time has to save Gotham from a villainous new adversary: the Joker (a superb Heath Ledger), whose anarchic reign of terror and seemingly mindless spates of violence is causing chaos in the city. Read more…
KUNG FU PANDA – Hans Zimmer and John Powell
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
An animated action comedy from DreamWorks that features an astonishing voice cast – Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, Jackie Chan, Seth Rogen, Lucy Liu – Kung Fu Panda follows the fortunes of Po, a clumsy but well-meaning panda who, despite his enthusiasm, is the worst student at the kung fu academy run by the noble, severe Master Shifu. However, when Tai Lung, an evil snow leopard, escapes from prison and vows revenge on Shifu and his students, Po is unexpectedly revealed to be the one prophesized to stop Tai Lung’s plan and save the academy.
The film, which was enormously popular and successful at the box office, has an original score by Hans Zimmer and John Powell, collaborating on an animated film for the second time, after The Road to El Dorado in 2000. Read more…
THE SIMPSONS MOVIE – Hans Zimmer
Original Review by Clark Douglas
By now the subject has been talked to death… but at a first glance, it is a little confusing that Hans Zimmer is scoring “The Simpsons Movie”. Why not Danny Elfman, who wrote the classic main theme for the television show? Was he not available, or uninterested, or what? And if not Elfman, why not Alf Clausen, who has been tirelessly writing fun music for the television show for nearly two decades? The choice of Zimmer probably comes from the fact that James L. Brooks has always been involved with the Simpsons, and Zimmer has had several successful collaborations with Brooks (“As Good as it Gets”, “I’ll Do Anything”, and “Spanglish”). Read more…
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD’S END – Hans Zimmer
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The third and (at the time of writing) final Pirates of the Caribbean movie promises to be the biggest and best of them all. With Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) having vanished during his battle with the Kraken at the end of Dead Man’s Chest, the remainder of the gallant crew – Will Turner (Orlando Bloom), the lovely Elizabeth Swann (Kiera Knightley), former Commodore Norrington (Jack Davenport) – agree to accompany Jack’s former nemesis, Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) to “the end of the world” to rescue him from oblivion. In order to achieve this, the hearty band of brigands must travel to Singapore to enlist the help of Sao Feng (Chow-Yun Fat), a ruthless pirate who rules the South Seas, while avoiding the attentions of Lord Cutler Beckett (Tom Hollander), who wants to end the pirate way of life once and for all, and especially Davy Jones (Bill Nighy), the captain of the accursed Flying Dutchman, who still seeks revenge against Jack and his crew… Read more…
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN’S CHEST – Hans Zimmer
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
When I wrote my review of Klaus Badelt’s score for Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl back in 2003, my opening paragraph read: “In giving Pirates of the Caribbean a four-star review, I’m making myself undergo a crisis of conscience. How can I, as a “respected” reviewer of film music, give such a high rating to a score which is quite blatantly inappropriate for the movie, predictable to the extreme, and derivative of virtually every major Media Ventures action score written in the last ten years?”. Three years later, and Hans Zimmer’s score for the sequel, Dead Man’s Chest, has me thinking the exact same thing. Yet again, though, the bottom line is this: it may be inappropriate, and simplistic, and bear no relation to either the Disney ride or the musical genre conventions of pirate movies, but each and every time I listen to it, I have a bloody good time, and thoroughly enjoy the experience. Read more…
THE DA VINCI CODE – Hans Zimmer
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
It’s not often that a work of fiction generates such a frenzy of attention that the Vatican itself is compelled to comment on its contents, but that’s what happened in the aftermath of the release of Dan Brown’s novel The Da Vinci Code in 2003. The book, which offers controversial theories about subjects as wide ranging as the life of Jesus Christ, the nature of the Holy Grail, corruption within the Catholic church, the roles of several Masonic orders, and the legacy of artists and scholars such as Isaac Newton, Claude Debussy, Victor Hugo, and Da Vinci himself, has sold more than 40 millions copies world-wide, making it one of the most successful books of the 21st century. Critics have denounced it as a work of poorly-written fiction whose subject matter is tantamount to blasphemy; admirers of Brown’s work have lauded it as an enjoyable work in its own right, which as well as being a thrilling page-turner, highlights a number of important questions which scholars of world history have been asking for many years. I personally enjoyed it immensely. Read more…
BATMAN BEGINS – Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The general consensus about the fifth modern Batman movie, Batman Begins, is that the franchise has finally been revitalised. Personally, I always considered Joel Schumacher, the director of Batman Forever and Batman & Robin, to have completely undermined the effectiveness of the series, shattering the feelings of gothic grandeur Tim Burton initiated and replacing it with gaudy, neon-lit overkill. In the hands of director Christopher Nolan – whose previous films include the excellent thrillers Memento and Insomnia – Batman Begins is a more introspective film that tempers its large-scale action scenes with a thoughtful, serious edge that marks, for me at least, a step in the right direction. Read more…
THE RING/THE RING 2 – Hans Zimmer/Henning Lohner and Martin Tillman
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
When novelist Koji Suzuki and director Hideo Nakata first came together to make the Japanese film Ringu in 1998, they could scarcely imagine the world wide impact their collaboration would make. The resulting movie was a domestic smash, and an enormous cult success, and has since seen numerous variations-on-a-theme in Asian cinema, as well as the inevitable Hollywood remakes. Essentially a film exploring the horrific potential of modern electrical appliances, the American remake – The Ring – was directed by Gore Verbinski, and starred Naomi Watts as journalist Rachel Keller, who stumbles across a mystery surrounding a video tape which causes the deaths of anyone who watches it. When her own niece falls victim to the video curse, and when her young son Aidan (David Dorfman) begins to behave oddly, Keller digs deeper – and uncovers the horrific history of a young girl named Samara Morgan, an isolated horse farm, terrible telekinetic powers, and an old dark well… Read more…
SPANGLISH – Hans Zimmer
Original Review by Peter Simons
A comedy about the barrier of language, Spanglish is not exactly the most original movie out there. Newcomer Paz Vega stars a Flor, a Mexican immigrant who moves to America hoping to find a better future for herself and her daughter Christina (Victoria Luna). She finds a job as the personal housekeeper of the Clasky family (Tea Leoni and Adam Sandler). Of course, the fact that she doesn’t speak a word of English does complicate things a little. Directed by James L. Brooks who previously made As Good As It Gets and I’ll Do Anything among others, Spanglish was reasonably successful and showed the world that Adam Sandler is not that bad an actor if given half a chance. Read more…
KING ARTHUR – Hans Zimmer
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
I was going to open this review by saying something along the lines of “Can Media Ventures sink any lower than this, yet another tepid regurgitation of past scores?”, but in actual fact, the more I have listened to King Arthur, it seems less terrible than it did on that first spin. It’s certainly not a great score: it’s unoriginal, clichéd, and at times quite laughably predictable in its construction and execution. But, mixed in with all the familiarity, there’s a great score trying to break out. Zimmer only lets it shine in brief, so-near-and-yet-so-far snippets, which tantalise the listener into wondering what this score could have been, if only… Read more…
THE LAST SAMURAI – Hans Zimmer
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The star of Hans Zimmer continues to grow as, year by year, he and his crew at Media Ventures continue to become attached to some of the most high profile, prestigious projects in Hollywood. With Klaus Badelt, Steve Jablonsky, and former alumni such as Harry Gregson-Williams and John Powell all having successful years, Zimmer has increasingly found himself in an “over-seeing” role, or leading a team of composers in a multi-faceted approach to a project, such as this year’s Tears of the Sun. Only occasionally does Zimmer approach a score on his own: these projects being the ones which have the potential to become box-office blockbusters, or which could garner awards. The Last Samurai is one of these scores. Read more…
MATCHSTICK MEN – Hans Zimmer
Original Review by Peter Simons
One of the most unexpectedly fun albums of the year undoubtedly has to be Hans Zimmer’s Matchstick Men. The sheer joy with which this score was written just oozes from its pores. That alone is worth a million bucks for me. Its snazzy, southern European feel is slightly reminiscent of As Good As It Gets, the score for which Zimmer received an Oscar nominated in 1997, but although it would be deserved, Hans won’t get that kind of recognition for Matchstick Men. The score deliberately weaves in performances of Nino Rota’s theme from La Dolce Vita, which automatically renders the score illegible for the Academy Awards. This is a shame, because this wicked little score deserves all attention and recognition it can get… but on the other hand — who gives a hoot about the Oscars? Read more…
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