Filmtracks Traffic Rank: #967
Written 6/25/98, Revised 11/15/15
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Buy it... if you consistently enjoy James Newton Howard's diverse
percussion work and more muscular action material, both of which
presented well on the 2015 expanded set of music from this film.
Avoid it... on the original 1995 album at all costs, because much
of the memorable action material that compensates for the score's weak
thematic stance is missing from that short commercial release.
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| Howard |
Outbreak: (James Newton Howard) Tales about the
ultimate plague have bounced around in science fiction novels for
decades, for mysterious, deadly diseases remain a dark territory in
which the average person can easily be scared in a story. In Wolfgang
Petersen's Outbreak, an all-star cast is assembled to combat the
spread of a plague that is initially seen in Africa some 40 years ago.
The film was inspired by the real-life Ebola scares of 1989, long before
the disease was resurrected in mainstream consciousness in the 2010's,
though Warner Brothers decided to ditch that well-known virus for a
similar but fictional variant. By the 1990's, this new plague manifests
itself in an African monkey that is being smuggled into the United
States for sale as a pet, but before its inevitable escape, it manages
to infect a human carrier and the disease spreads across Northern
California at an alarming rate. This plague in particular is a nasty
one, liquifying internal organs and killing a person in a day, and the
government is inclined to destroy the outbreak areas with massive bombs.
The film was a serviceable thriller despite its monumental last-minute
script re-writes by a slew of well-known screenwriters, gaining
respectable reviews and returns at the box office, and for composer
James Newton Howard, it would follow one of his more diverse action
scores of his career, Waterworld, a year prior. While Howard had
never really been associated first and foremost with massive action
scores, the roots of his scores such as King Kong later in his
career were already well developed by the time Outbreak rolled
along. And Howard holds nothing back in Outbreak, with the
recording including impressive symphonic sequences merged with
performances by African vocalist Lebo M., synthesizer expert Steve
Porcaro, and the L.A. Master Chorale. Howard's instrumental creativity
is often marked by his inflated team of orchestrators, and for this
project, he extended his reputation of combining disparate sounds into a
product that is interesting at the very least, and enjoyable in many
parts. While he stopped a step short of providing the plague with an
easily discernable melodic theme of its own, Howard does substitute
strong ambient effects as a suspense motif for its effect on its
victims. This tingling, high-pitched tool of suspense is most often
applied with success early in the score, sometimes with a hint of primal
woodwinds as an accent for the original money carrier. Some of the
ambient, groaning suspense clearly foreshadows Howard's influence on
Dante's Peak.
The one major detraction in the
Outbreak score
is that it is has no thematic progression of narrative, no development
of a motif that grows more ominous as the plague spreads. More than most
other composers, however, Howard achieves effective scores without the
need of a strong thematic presence, and
Outbreak is one of those
occasions in which the lack of a clearly defined theme or growing sense
of doom is disappointing but not restrictive. Howard scores the moment
in each case, opening with a modern synthetic rhythm over a weak theme
that does exist much in the score, with choral backing and a series of
rhythmically falling strings that set the mood of peril well. A
highlight of this score, "Main Titles" is remarkably similar to suspense
cues that would later define the composer's career. The only notable
performance by Lebo M. on the original album follows, and muscular brass
overlay a bed of African percussion that we hear before a small village
infected with the plague is firebombed off the map. Among other
highlights is "Casey Rips His Suit," in which a frantic blast of
dissonance is replaced by a choral anthem of terror. Also of interest is
"Jimbo Gets Sick," in which another dissonant crescendo for the virus'
motif is contributed to by metallic scraping and string whining that are
mutilated so that they resemble the distant crying of monkeys. The main
attraction in
Outbreak, however, is the parade of large-scale
action cues,which exist in often a perfect marriage between the
electronic rhythms and orchestral performances. They highlight the
military presence and the African origins in unison more often than not,
percussion a particular highlight of the score. Unfortunately, many of
these solid action cues did not appear on the original
Outbreak
album. While the 30-minute album from Varèse Sarabande did
contain "Casey Goes Down" and "A Little Resistance," a significant
portion of the heightened action material available was dropped in favor
of the more suspenseful or downright positive reinforcement material,
the latter including the quietly beautiful "Robbie's Bedside."
Varèse compensated with a full Club presentation of
Outbreak twenty years later, however, and this 2-CD set finally
offers the full highlights of Howard's action cues. Don't be surprised
if some of them stray towards Jerry Goldsmith territory in their
ambitious attitude. While the 2015 album is vastly superior to the brief
1995 teaser, it still exposes the score as one of singular highlights
without a powerful narrative flow, the main theme illuminated at the end
remaining quite weak. With better thematic cohesion, this could be a
strong 4-star score. It's still a fun diversion for Howard action
enthusiasts, however, and the 2015 set has to be recommended.
*** @Amazon.com: CD or
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Bias Check:
For James Newton Howard reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.4
(in 70 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.36
(in 86,511 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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