: (Alan Silvestri/Glen Ballard) So
much hype was generated about the production process of making
super-realistic animated characters that many reviews of Robert
Zemeckis'
completely ignored the fact that the
2004 film was a musical. Indeed, the adaptation of Chris Van Allsburg's
relatively recent children's story was so concerned with its look that
its sound seemed like an afterthought. The process of taking Tom Hanks
and other performers and using body dot technology to allow computers to
mimic their acting did truly produce, outside of
, a form of realism not seen in animated form, though
this breakthrough came at a price. Despite all of Zemeckis' team's
endeavors, a disastrous miscalculation in the rendering of the
characters' eyes (including a devastatingly poor representation of the
eyes' focal points) caused every person in the film to exhibit a creepy,
glazed-over look. Some reviewers did not let this detail stop them from
rating
very highly, though audiences rewarded
Warner Brothers' $165 million investment with only $175 million in
grosses, a notable disappointment given the project's expectations. The
general darkness in the overall rendering (the first feature-length film
for a 3D IMAX format) was also a detriment to the production's appeal to
children in the age bracket targeted by the book, despite the great care
taken to extend the illustrative feel of Van Allsburg's creation to the
screen. The story itself had to be expanded significantly to fill 90
minutes of screen time, though Zemeckis' own additions to the plot were
well received. Compensating for the potential hazards awaiting audiences
in the gloomy and mysterious visuals was ultimately the task of
Zemeckis' usual collaborator, Alan Silvestri, who teamed up with Glen
Ballard to create five original songs for
.
Silvestri then took those melodies and incorporated them into a short
underscore that largely relies heavily upon them, with the exception of
one substantial theme of mystery specific to the score. A collection of
classic Christmas-related pop songs from an era past were employed,
allowing Zemeckis to throw some Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby into the
soundscape for (likely) nostalgic reasons.
Upon the arrival of the awards season, Silvestri and
Ballard received the bulk of the recognition aimed at
The Polar
Express (along with sound-related technical nominations), with their
Josh Groban-performed song "Believe" receiving a Grammy Award along with
Oscar and Golden Globe nominations. Of the songs, "Believe" is not
surprisingly the most memorable, used as the score's primary thematic
identity as well. Its tone is appropriately inspirational, its melody
pretty, and Groban's performance is, as usual, gorgeous. But that can't
hide the fact that the structure of the song owes a considerable amount
to Andrew Lloyd Weber's "Music of the Night" from
The Phantom of the
Opera and James Horner and Barry Mann's "Somewhere Out There" from
An American Tail. This nagging feeling of similarities between
the music in
The Polar Express and previous films is perpetual
problem, with other melodic portions resembling Randy Newman's
The
Natural (oddly) and, in the instrumental portions, John Williams'
Home Alone and Danny Elfman's
Edward Scissorhands. The two
hyperactive ensemble songs led by Hanks, "The Polar Express" and "Hot
Chocolate" are countered by the redeeming and subdued "character in
longing" song of stereotype in "When Christmas Comes to Town." Of more
relation to the first song is the vintage jazz and rock combination in
"Rockin' on the Top of the World." An original choral hymn (in
traditional style) was penned by the composers in "Spirit of the
Season," a piece with all the beauty of the holidays but vacant perhaps
of any deep sense of authenticity (which gives you pause when you
contemplate Christmas music recorded during the summer). Most of these
songs contain orchestral backing that provides a strong connection to
the underscore cues, courtesy of common orchestration by Silvestri
regulars William Ross and Conrad Pope. As such, the score tracks in
The Polar Express maintain the same general tone as the songs,
not to mention their constructs nearly the entire time as well.
Silvestri wrote about half an hour of strictly orchestral material for
the film, and it would not be surprising to learn that a tally of all
the songs' melodies occupy about 25 of those minutes, if not more. Never
are these themes dramatically altered, their development stagnant from
start to finish.
On the commercial album for
The Polar Express,
Silvestri summarizes four of the songs in "Suite from The Polar
Express," a piece that doesn't provide any unique thematic material of
the score's own. That product contains only one true score piece,
"Seeing is Believing," and this cue gives the listener a few moments
with Silvestri's original mystery theme before heading off to quote
passages from several famous Christmas carols. This theme of mystery,
highlighted by deep male voices and whimsical xylophone, best
accompanies the score cue "Do You Believe in Ghosts?" in the film and on
the various promotional and bootlegged albums that exist for
The
Polar Express. Also of possible note from the actual score are the
sometimes lengthy recordings of standard Silvestri action tones in
"Approaching Flat Top Tunnel" and "On the Ice," though the composer
never whips the ensemble into the kind of convincing and satisfying
frenzy heard earlier in the year in
Van Helsing. Lengthy
sequences of the lighter songs' melodies exist in the substantial cues
"Meeting Santa Claus" and "The Ride Home," quoting "Believe" and "Spirit
of the Season" liberally and often pausing for extended moments of
quietly alternating high choral beauty reminiscent of the previously
mentioned Elfman classic. Silvestri didn't have much latitude when
working on this score, obviously, for there's only so much in terms of
instrumentation and structure that you can do with this topic. He
resorts to the usual tambourines, bells, chimes, and other expected
sounds frequently, and this constantly upbeat holiday spirit does become
tiresome after a while. The album situation for
The Polar Express
is somewhat complicated, though a hard limit on the amount of music
recorded for the film does simplify matters. The commercial album
contains only a few minutes of Silvestri's own score material not
connected to the songs. Released a month later was a Warner Brothers
"For Your Consideration" promotional album featuring five untitled
tracks amounting to 27 minutes. Fans eventually took the two albums and
combined them to form "complete" bootlegs, some featuring an alternate
edit of the suite heard on the commercial product. The promotional score
material is adequate at every moment, but, like the film, doesn't really
live up to the hype. Silvestri and Ballard deserved their paychecks for
their work here, but it's naggingly derivative and was unable to expand
itself beyond the constraints of the genre and season. "Ho ho ho" thus
becomes "ho-hum."
*** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
| Bias Check: |
For Alan Silvestri reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.47
(in 43 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.33
(in 40,196 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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