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Wreck-It Ralph
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Composed and Produced by:
Conducted by:
Nick Glennie-Smith
Orchestrated by:
Stephen Coleman Andrew Kinney Dave Metzger John Ashton Thomas Larry Rench
Additional Music by:
Dominic Lewis Matthew Margeson
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LABEL & RELEASE DATE
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ALBUM AVAILABILITY
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Regular U.S. release.
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AWARDS
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None.
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ALSO SEE
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Buy it... if you appreciate really smart children's scores, this
one exhibiting vintage arcade tones with symphonic and choral action up
to the standards of Henry Jackman's prior work in the genre.
Avoid it... if you wish to never again be reminded of the hours you
wasted in arcades during the 1980's, for the incorporation of those
games' music into a modern film score is quite frightening and
practically intolerable in parts.
BUY IT
 | Jackman |
Wreck-It Ralph: (Henry Jackman) Rarely does a
concept take 25 years to finally work its way through production hell to
reach the big screen, but that's what happened with Wreck-It
Ralph at Disney. It had labored through several incarnations and
required extensive licensing with famous video game rights owners to
complete as envisioned, but the movie was ironically finished ahead of
schedule and thus released in 2012 rather than a year later. The concept
is a novel one, earning respect from critics for tackling the fresh
subject of arcade video game characters and their relationships with
each other after all the kids (and loser adult males) playing the arcade
attractions go home each night. The characters from these games travel
in between each others' realms, creating interpersonal melodrama and
causing mishaps in the programming of the games' software. When the
villain, Wreck-It Ralph, of one game tires of being the badguy, he
escapes to other games in search of becoming a hero, inadvertently
unleashing a bug across the arcade. His race to save the other games and
gain acceptance in his own occupies the film and sets the stage for
possible sequels. The most difficult part of producing Wreck-It
Ralph, not surprisingly, was the licensing of famous real-life
arcade characters of the 1980's generation for cameos in the film, and
some were dropped due to cost. Loyalty to that era is key to the success
of Wreck-It Ralph, and this fact was certainly not lost on
composer Henry Jackman. Among the most classically-gifted assistants to
emerge from Hans Zimmer's production house in the late 2000's, Jackman
has emphasized action more often than not in his early career,
alternating between the adventure of children's films and the straight,
contemporary excitement of adult topics. From Monsters vs. Aliens
in 2009 to Puss in Boots in 2011, his ability to combine
disparate genres to meet the needs of modern children's crossover films
has not gone unnoticed. Without a doubt, Wreck-It Ralph
represented one of Jackman's most challenging solo assignments to date,
requiring that he study and incorporate 1980's arcade musical
personalities into an otherwise standard orchestral and choral adventure
outing.
Jackman's applications of the vintage arcade elements
clearly dominate the resulting score for Wreck-It Ralph, adding
both exhilarating pizzazz and obnoxious nostalgia to music that sounds
in many places similar to his prior major children's work and, at times,
other Remote Control-related ventures by his peers. With this procedural
approach in mind, you have to admire Jackman's output for Wreck-It
Ralph. It's difficult to functionally layer the 1980's arcade
samples with the orchestral material and pass thematic representations
between both sides of the mix. The pure enthusiasm factor in this score
can't be ignored, and the composer balances his brightly optimistic
heroism with a fair amount of tongue-in-cheek fun. At the same time,
Wreck-It Ralph is the kind of score that could drive a listener
to insanity because of these same elements, especially when the 1980's
personality dominates. Stylistically, the music traverses a very wide
swath, entering parody territory at times, and the overall impact will
be tiring for those not accustomed to appreciating this kind of effort
apart from the film. The score moves like a frantic
stream-of-consciousness kind of work, so this review will tag along with
it for its major cues. Jackman opens with a softer, light rock theme
that exists somewhere in between Basil Poledouris' Wind and a
contemporary Naoki Sato drama work. In the subsequent "Life in the
Arcade," the composer unleashes the most faithful, source-like 1980's
arcade material, a frightful reminder of wasted hours past. As the
action picks up in the next few cues, some influences begin to emerge;
at about 3:40 into "Rocket Fiasco," Jackman very explicitly revisits
vintage Zimmer music, namely The Rock. This material yields to
immensely irritating parodies in "Royal Raceway" that literally
alternate between stuffy royal tones and rocking arcade theatrics. The
themes take a while to establish themselves in memory, and the main
descending melody of villainy is cemented by its organ performance at
the start of "Cupcake Breakout." The parody material returns in "Laffy
Taffies," which touches upon both John Powell and Danny Elfman
techniques, the latter's Wonka-related "la-la" vocals closing out the
cue. Powell collectors may, as in Jackman's previous works for
children's films, hear similarities in the style of the composers'
orchestral flourishes.
In two cues for Wreck-It Ralph, Jackman
seemingly synchs his score with the choppy structures of the popular
car-related Rihanna song "Shut Up and Drive" (included on the album),
the first of these throwing an arcade-laced instrumental variation of
this song up against vintage game show jazz in "One Minute to Win It."
The opening of "Vanellope's Hideout" returns to the soft theme from the
score's start, and a similar treatment is heard early in "Out of the
Penthouse, Off to the Race" (with more Saito-like sensibilities in the
latter). The end of "Messing With the Program" features a great
crescendo that masterfully balances the orchestra, choir, and arcade
elements. A longer crescendo for violins in the middle of "King Candy"
uses the main, descending phrase as counterpoint in the middle, a nice
touch. This theme becomes more pronounced, albeit remorsefully, in
"Broken-Karted." The last minute returns to the awkward royal arcade
material, complete with a short reprise of the "Shut Up and Drive"
references. Jackman saves most of his best action material for the final
two orchestral cues; "Sugar Rush Showdown" especially combines the
ensemble with the arcade's rhythmic loops quite well, and the main theme
gets a healthy workout at the end as well. Bursts of awe in "You're My
Hero" lead up to a snippet of smirk-inducing, Craig Armstrong-like
choral melodrama at 2:35 before the big villain theme on organ is forced
to translate into a brassy heroic performance to close out the scene.
The soft rock character material from the start of the score returns
pleasantly one last time in "Arcade Finale" before launching into a
wretchedly hip version of the arcade tones. At least Jackman does allow
the orchestra to sentimentally take the final moments to a quietly sappy
close. Overall, this wild ride is amusing and entertaining in its parts
but difficult to qualify in its whole because the wacky instrumentation
really does dominate the structures. You don't leave the score with a
clear picture of Jackman's thematic intentions; while the
representations exit, they are muddied by the fast pace and inconsistent
instrumental colors. As mentioned before, this score is admirably smart
enough to earn four stars, but when heard on album, its ultra-frenetic
personality and surprisingly elusive themes, along with the mostly
original but unrelated and irritating songs (several of which meant for
the end credits), pull Wreck-It Ralph back to three-star
reality. @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
- Music as Written for the Film: ****
- Music as Heard on Album: ***
- Overall: ***
Bias Check: |
For Henry Jackman reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 2.69
(in 13 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 2.66
(in 4,781 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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Total Time: 70:47
1. When Can I See You Again? - performed by Owl City (3:38)
2. Wreck-It, Wreck-It Ralph - performed by Buckner & Garcia (2:59)
3. Celebration - performed by Kool & The Gang (3:40)
4. Sugar Rush - performed by AKB48 (3:14)
5. Bug Hunt (Noisa Remix) - performed by Skrillex (7:04)
6. Shut Up and Drive - performed by Rihanna (3:32)
7. Wreck-It Ralph (1:33)
8. Life in the Arcade (0:43)
9. Jumping Ship (1:06)
10. Rocket Fiasco (5:48)
11. Vanellope Von Schweetz (2:57)
12. Royal Raceway (3:23)
13. Cupcake Breakout (1:12)
14. Candy Vandals (1:39)
15. Turbo Flashback (1:42)
16. Laffy Taffies (1:35)
17. One Minute to Win It (1:17)
18. Vanellope's Hideout (2:33)
19. Messing with the Program (1:20)
20. King Candy (2:11)
21. Broken-Karted (2:49)
22. Out of the Penthouse, Off to the Race (2:51)
23. Sugar Rush Showdown (4:15)
24. You're My Hero (4:15)
25. Arcade Finale (3:19)
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The insert includes lyrics for the first two songs and a list of
performers but no extra information about the score or film.
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