Great sound; has a reasonable entertainment value; beautiful love theme .
Disadvantages:
Forgettable; not one bit unique; no real main theme .
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
INTRODUCTION
Summer has always been known as the time when film studios push out their best on the action front with mind-numbing popcorn flicks often defining the hotter months of the year. With the final Star Wars film still selling well and Spielberg's War of the Worlds following close behind there sure is no lack of big budget action/CGI films, to which we can also add the ultimate popcorn flick, Batman Begins. Ever since Tim Burton introduced Batman as a marketable franchise in 1989, the Caped Crusader has gone to the top of the hill with his darkly gothic and mysterious world of Batman and Batman Returns, to Joel Schumacher's neon glowing carnival atmosphere of Batman Forever, and to the complete embarrassment of Batman & Robin where George Clooney, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Uma Thurman and Chris O'Donnell managed to pull out some of their worst performances ever. With the utter failure to capture the essence of Batman in Batman & Robin, the franchise just seemed to wither out and die with a whisper. It is but now that Batman has begun to resurface again as Christopher Nolan takes the helm and steers Batman back to his original darker roots. Taking place before Burton's original, Batman Begins is in effect a prequel, detailing how Bruce Wayne saw his parents gunned down when he was a child and in time how he developed into becoming Batman. With mostly favourable critical response, Batman Begins is set to be one of the top grossing film of 2005.
THE ORIGINS
With the film being much more serious and less comic-book like, the musical approach for Batman Begins was obviously not going to be one filled with comic bookish themes, fanfares and excessive pompousness. With Danny Elfman's Batman introducing a whole generation of film goers to film music, it set a benchmark that was not to be overstepped easily. After Elfman left due to irreconsilible differences on the production of Batman Forever, Elliot Goldenthal took over the reins as the genre composer, emulating Elfman's original Batman theme as much as he could without infringing copyright rules and wrote a flashy collection of underscore cues that corresponded with the neon-coloured atmosphere of the new film, complete with fox-trots, two-steps, and brass slurs. This approach was carried on for Batman & Robin, but the poor performance of the film caused the score as well to be forgotten, not even receiving a score-only album like in the previous film.
For Batman Begins, Chris Nolan (probably due to studio pressure) decided not to go along with his usual collaborator David Julyan, and instead enlisted the services of the Jerry Bruckheimer collaborator/Media Ventures mogul Hans Zimmer, who is one of the highest selling and popular composers working in Hollywood today. For Zimmer, 2005 has been a most unusual year so far with his swapping of places with another MV buddy Harry Gregson-Williams from Ridely Scott's "Gladiator-sequel" Kingdom of Heaven to the animated film Madagascar, whose musical accompaniment was so dire that one only has to wonder how can anybody in their right mind actually pay money for that dripple of an album. Then came Batman Begins, a project that could have allowed Zimmer to dip into some impressive orchestral sounds (though I wasn't really holding my breath) but, as is usual, decided he couldn't possibly write an entire score all by himself. So he enlisted the help of another A-list composer, James Newton Howard, who himself once emerged from among the MV composers and has by now forged a sound of his own and even earned Academy Award recognition with last year's nomination of The Village (a stunning score by the way). It is the first time two A-list Hollywood composers have collaborated together since the 1954 collaboration of Bernard Herrmann and Alfred Newman on The Egyptian, and from the outset this combination was an enticing prospect.
THE MUSIC
According to Zimmer the two had wanted to work together for a long time, and with Batman Begins they finally had the opportunity to do this. It is not exactly clear how the two worked together, whether they sat together and actually wrote with each other in the same room or specified what they would write on their own. Likewise it is not stated anywhere which composer has written which cue or which theme, although this is fairly simple to tell apart. It seems that Zimmer was responsible for most the action writing and Howard was more involved with the quieter stuff in which he excels more than in straight out action. For a main theme (if it can really be described as such) Zimmer wrote a very simple and a rather clichéd two-note minor/major motif that he blasts forward mostly during action sequences. This motif, although effective in its own way, is a disappointment to anyone expecting a full out theme, even though a complete theme could have been created without loss of effectiveness or atmosphere. The other major theme inherent in Batman Begins is the love theme, which is obviously the handywork of Howard. Far more satisfying than the main two-note motif, it is a very emotional and beautiful theme, troubled yet passionate, and wholly involving.
On the whole, Batman Begins is musically pretty disappointing. Although we have two highly respected composers working on the project, the end result is closer to noisy ambience rather than anything else. And although Howard rises to the occasion a few times, it is Zimmer's voice that ultimately leaves the bigger impression. His standard use of synths on top of a huge percussive section is overpowering at most times and presents nothing essentially new. The score also contains Zimmer's usual playing around with sound effects. These are apparent from the very opening cue "Vespertilio" which begins with what I think is supposed to be the flapping of the wings of a giant bat. These effects make a few more appearances during the score, finally ending the final cue "Lasiurus". Also included are fizzes, swooshes, crackles, and other such ostensibly standard synth effects ("Tadarida" is a prime example of this) that don't make much of a musical impression. The action music of Zimmer is notably absent for the most part, at least on album, with the cues "Myotis" and "Molossus" offering the only really outstanding places where the action motifs get a decent working out. The latter cue in particular presents the action music in its highest form with bold brass, synths, ten layers of percussion and huge climaxes. The sound is simply breathtaking, although it is not liable to stay in your memory after it ends.
The love theme on the other hand is stupendous for its beauty, which is a trait James Newton Howard is well known for. Unfortunately this theme only appears a few times and even then it is most often cut off by more noisy ambience. It is introduced in the track "Marcrotus" and receives a more passionate performance later on in "Corynorhinus." Other than those appearances, though, it gets only a precious few references. There are a couple of places where the music stands out from the general ambience. "Eptesicus" features some nice piano work along with a nice pulsing beat underneath, and the vocals of a boy choirster in "Barbastella" stand out beautifully, more so because these vocals don't appear anywhere else apart from one small appearance in "Tadarida." But apart from these highlights, in the end there is sadly little left to savour from the score. The fact that it is missing a real main theme (two notes of a clichéd motif just don't cut it) and the fact that much of this score is missing that one element that could possibly render the music at least partly memorable makes Batman Begins a big disappointment. Even the finale cue "Lasiurus" brings no sense of closure, remaining somewhat flat and uninteresting for the most part. Also the general absence of the gorgeous love theme makes one hunger for more. With Hans Zimmer's overbearing personality drowning out James Newton Howard's more restrained material, it makes the score sound just like any other Zimmer action score from the past fifteen years, and the general incoherence of structure makes it all the more forgettable (and regrettable).
THE ALBUM
The album offers some 60 minutes of score on twelve tracks. As an amusing little detail, all the tracks have been named after the Latin definition of different breeds of bat. Also (intentionally perhaps?) the first letters of tracks four through nine spell the name BATMAN. The problem of course with these titles is that you have absolutely no idea where each track is supposed to be located in the film (this is something of a complaint many have expressed on different discussion forums). The sleeve notes are on cue with many other Zimmer liner notes in thanking just about every single guy working on the score from the coffee maker to all the people at Steinberg. Also credited are two other MV composers Ramin Djawadi and Mel Wesson for writing additional music, which is another thing I don't understand about Zimmer; is he just so incapable of writing music by himself without having to list a bunch of minor composers to finish his work? Think Madagscar that had something like seven other composers and none managed to get anything good done (didn't Zimmer get anybody to write with him on Kingdom of Heaven because he gave it to Gregson-Williams?). Silly…it really is. The bottom line with Batman Begins is that it is very entertaining, but it's largely forgettable in the long run, with nothing memorable to make it stand out as being nothing more than a very standard action score from Zimmer. If only Howard could have written the whole thing then mayble we could have gotten something more interesting. I'm still going to recommend this to potential buyers, but take that with a grain of salt. Although it can give a lot of pleasurable noise for many, it will not make a score collector like myself to play this for just pleasurable listening. Batman Begins just left me feeling that this project was musically an opportunity missed.
Music Composed by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard Conducted by Gavin Greenaway Electric Cello: Martin Tillman Percussion: Frank Ricotti & Gary Keitel Choirboy: Thomas Jesty Additional Music by Ramin Djawadi & Mel Wesson Orchestrated by Brad Dechter & Bruce Fowler Recorded and Mixed by Geoff Foster Music Editors: Steven Price & Richard Robson Produced by Hans Zimmer & James Newton Howard Warner Sunset, 2005 (71324)
