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Toys: (Hans Zimmer/Trevor Horn) Reportedly the first
idea for a film that director Barry Levinson had ever wanted to make,
Toys was a dozen years in the making and just a few weeks in the
crumbling. Hailed as a shining star right before its opening in 1992,
Toys teamed Levinson once again with Robin Williams (the wildly
successful pairing from
Good Morning, Vietnam), Joan Cusack, and
Michael Gambon as the evil 'General' (long before stepping into the role of
Dumbledore after the death of Richard Harris). But despite a stunning array
of colors and an equally intriguing set of ideas,
Toys failed
miserably in its task. It's tale of a family battle in an idealic toy
factory, with a struggle for control of the manufacturing focus between the
benevolent son (Williams), who wants to continue the wholesome nature of the
business, and the militaristic uncle (Gambon), who has insane visions of
producing violent, dangerous toys of war. There are really too many
parallels and sub-plots in
Toys to discuss; themes of espionage and
domestic terrorism surely keep the film from being recommended to children,
and Levinson's reasons for making the picture are still unclear a dozen
years later. The lack of focus in the film leads to a mesmerizing and
confusing overall experience, a problem compounded by the music chosen for
the film. A series of new age-related avenues were explored in
Toys,
with Enya's dreamy "Ebundae" perfectly summing up the cloudy atmosphere of
the story. Levinson had found success in his work with composer Hans Zimmer
in
Rainman, and Zimmer would be asked to provide an extension of the
new age sound in his largely electronic score for
Toys. Like the
film, however, Zimmer's work (with long-time arranger and associate Trevor
Horn in what was perhaps his most significant project in the formative
Zimmer years leading up to the Media Ventures enterprise) would suffer from
a lack of purpose or direction.
Zimmer and Horn split the composing duties on
Toys,
with a handful of other artists contributing to the eclectic sounds of the
score and its adjoining songs. Generally, Zimmer seems to have based his
approach to the music on the joyful atmosphere of Robin Williams' version of
the toy factory. While seeming to wander aimlessly at times, Zimmer contents
himself in extending a friendly hand in the pleasant tone of the score. The
opening and closing song, "The Closing of the Year," begins with a matronly
lullaby and extends into a performance by a children's choir. The popularity
of this song has been surprisingly strong over the years, with artists such
as Placido Domingo and Sarah Brightman performing the song in concert for
years to come. An elegant, orchestrally backed opera piece serves as
"Alsatia's Lullaby," with a tragic heart (appropriate for Cusack's
character) and beautiful melody. Zimmer goes on to create a primary theme
for the score itself; "Let Joy and Innocence Prevail" is the recurring theme
that holds the emotional scenes of the film together. Its simple and
enjoyable rhythms and, once again, pleasant tones are offered in a five
minute suite of Media Ventures-styled easy listening. Some of these ideas
from "Let Joy and Innocence Prevail" (especially with a flute or other
real-life solo instrument in the lead) would resurface in an increasingly
mature form in
Beyond Rangoon. Perhaps the more interesting cues in
Toys for the majority of Zimmer collectors are those that accompany
the dark side of the story. The Nazi-like march devised for "The General,"
with many darker ideas heard again in
The Peacemaker, is one of
uncomplicated minor key alternations in grand electronic style (one that
could easily scare a young child!), with synthesizers programmed to such
harsh extents that one could wonder if Vangelis was in the room at the time
of recording. Another cue with consistent snare use is "Battle
Introduction," in which the good toys, in their impending battle with the
evil toys, are stirred to heroic deeds by a
Rocketeer-like trumpet
theme and a Scottish spirit of bagpipes that further stretches the
imagination in the score's unfocused scope. Reprises of these themes appear
throughout both the film and album, making the actual running time of
original score music quite minimal.
With Hans Zimmer's above contributions to
Toys being
interesting, if not average for the composer, the film and its album takes a
distinctly sour turn in the plethora of auxiliary material recorded or
adopted for the film. Aside from Enya's yawn-inducing song (by no means a
better entry in her career), we also hear a touch of Tchaikovsky's Symphony
No. 1 at the very opening and a Tori Amos performance of "The Happy Worker,"
a piece arranged by Trevor Horn. Many of the more bizarre elements in
Toys are indeed the work of Horn, who also, along with Bruce Wooley,
writes another pop, distortion-laced song "Workers" for enhanced punch. They
also co-write "The Mirror Song," a centerpiece number in the film that has
an equally toxic pop effect on the film and album. The dance number "Welcome
to the Pleasuredome" (mixed with snippets of score from the battle
sequences) is another regrettable noisy cue, although this one has at least
become the theme song of a well-known professional wrestler in Japan since
its appearance in
Toys. The final reprise of the album further
dilutes the product with more pop wailing and disintegration of Zimmer's
music into an attempt to further tap into mainstream appeal. When you put all
of this together, whether we're talking about the film or album, you get a
curious sense of dissatisfaction that seems to confuse Zimmer collectors
more than the mainstream. The album for
Toys was aimed away from
score collectors, if not simply because of the obnoxious non-score material
throughout, because of a few snippets of dialogue over score tracks, too.
Ironically, one of the guilty pleasures of the commercial album is Grace
Jones' vocal performance of Zimmer's title piece, "Let Joy and Innocence
Prevail." Many movie-goers will recognize Jones, the tall and sleek
African-American model in
Conan the Destroyer and
A View to a
Kill (and a popular icon, interestingly, in the male/homosexual musical
community), as an actress, but her raspy singing voice tells the story of
Toys with a distinct fantasy touch. You can't help but cringe when
you hear her perform the lyric: "...for I am fearless." Instead of being
comforted by her performance, we hear the person who Arnold Schwarzenegger
deemed as the only female co-star who was 'too tough' for him.
Overall,
Toys is a wildly curious failure. It's one
of those rare Hans Zimmer works that sold so well in stores that you now see
it overflowing in used-CD bins, and yet you rarely ever hear the score
discussed in film music venues. Almost entirely shunned by score collectors,
Toys is a venture to be explored with care if you are a 'Zimmerite,'
because your reaction to this music could either irritate you greatly or
become a mainstay of Zimmer's electronic portion of your collection. Relief
for Zimmer fans came with the release of the second volume of "Follow Your
Dreams" albums in 1997 (the series of two albums was supposed to be followed
by a third, but that never happened... there remains debate even today about
whether Zimmer had a hand in helping this source material escape into the
secondary market for bootleggers to produce these and subsequent Media
Ventures "promos"). The first "Follow Your Dreams" album, with Mark
Mancina's contributions, was the source for cue #7, the instrumental
backgrounds for "The Closing of the Year." On the second album were four
additional cues from
Toys, all of which being original Zimmer, non-song work. An extended
recording of "The General" without dialogue, a version of "Battle
Introduction" also without dialogue, the larger instrumental mix of "Let Joy
and Innocence Prevail" under Grace Jones' performance, and an instrumental
version of the opening "The Closing of the Year" song are all available on
that album in excellent sound quality. As one could expect, bootleggers
immediately took those four score-only cues and added them to the salvagable
material from the commercial album and created a shorted, but score-happy
presentation of
Toys fans. Unfortunately, this bootleg still has
Trevor Horn's more unlistenable pop material sprinkled throughout, so be
forewarned that you may encounter unlistenable music no matter which route
you take with
Toys. If you desire the bootleg, then it probably
wouldn't hurt to also find the commercial release because of its incredibly
low price in used-CD bins (as low as $1.00). If not for the operatic theme
for Alsatia, your best material from
Toys is that which appears on
"Follow Your Dreams, Volume II." Still, the entire package borders on
frustration as it was constructed for the film, so be sure of your
convictions about Zimmer music before taking the plunge on this one.
Music as Heard in Film: **
Music as Heard on Commercial Album: *
Music as Heard on Bootleg: ***
Overall: **
| Bias Check: | For Hans Zimmer reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating
is 2.98 (in 51 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.23
(in 217,689 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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Both albums' inserts include no extra information about the score or film.
