Lost in Space/Species II CD Reviews

Lost in Space *** 1/2

BRUCE BROUGHTON

TVT Soundtrax 8180-2. 19 tracks - 67:59

Review by Jeff Bond

Oh, the indignities of scoring the summer blockbuster, where the soundtracks are less a recreation of the movie experience than of the accompanying marketing strategy. While we can probably be thankful to have any score at all from Lost in Space, there's something wrong when we get an album that consists of 38 minutes of techno concept songs and 28 minutes of Bruce Broughton's score. While New Line's music department and director Stephen Hopkins were eager to bring a mix of techno songs to the film (two of which are heard as source music coming from Penny Robinson's future CD player, the rest sampled over the film's lengthy end credits), Broughton's score was recorded in London (making re-use fees more affordable) and surely rates better than the under-half-an-hour sampling presented here. In a film which spared no expense (except in the lousy rendering of its precious CGI "blawrp" monkey), it's a little sad that the results of a crushing schedule for Broughton come to a measly 28 minutes.

As a film, Lost in Space probably depends too much on the nostalgic affection of grown up fans of the series, although the tone is clearly geared to youngsters (with an obnoxious '90s one-liner approach courtesy Batman and Robin screenwriter Akiva Goldsman), which may be one reason some fans seem to be disappointed with Broughton's score. During the first half of the film the music sometimes seems at odds with Hopkins's sleek, heavy metal look, and it's not until the movie's less action-oriented back half that Broughton's (and indeed the movie's) intentions become clear: this is less a sci fi action blockbuster and more a strangely dark yet Disneyesque exercise in family film making. Given Broughton's track record with Disney, his hiring on the film seems far more logical than might other composers connected to the project like Goldsmith, David Arnold and Mark Isham.

Broughton's approach is busy, thematic and complex, very much in keeping with his earlier work, and in general is the kind of fully-developed and highly complex writing that we don't hear much anymore. Some have complained about the lack of a unifying theme, which is mystifying since so many current scores tend to march out a bland and simpleminded title theme and repeat it ad nauseam, while Broughton subtly introduces a terrific 11-note melody and works it through the score in ingenious ways. At the other end of the composer's palette is his quirky, mildly agitated theme for Gary Oldman's Dr. Smith, very much in keeping with the approach John Williams took in his early TV scores for the original series. Broughton is almost guilty of too much subtlety when he insinuates this material into a climactic sequence in which the troublesome doctor is transformed into a cloaked, deformed monster that's a distillation of pure Smith evil (never before has the line "Never fear, Smith is here" carried such menace): it took me half a dozen listens before I could pick out the Smith motif working through the scene.

The dissonant, sci-fi-style effects are blended seamlessly into an overall tone that is rather friendly and bright-eyed, and his theme (at least as represented on the album) is equally elusive, presented in a rather low key fashion in the film's main title (which is just a brief moment after a lengthy and elaborate opening action sequence), with more fanfare during the film's exciting Jupiter launch sequence (which sounds like one of Broughton's rousing western cues), and then only in moody, atmospheric variations until the climax of the film, where its warm and hopeful progressions help to movingly resolve the movie's father/son dysfunction plotline with a gorgeous major key orchestral rendering ("The Portal"). In fact, Broughton's score is so effective at this point that it caused me to re-evaluate my largely negative reaction to the first half of the film and played beautifully into both nostalgic affection for the original series and the new movie's dysfunctional family thrust. Broughton saves his real fireworks for last, taking the theme through a thrilling, fugal series of variations with propulsive, staccato brass and string accompaniment as the Jupiter 2 bullets through the center of a disintegrating planet. The final effect leaves the listener distinctly wanting more, particularly since the complete presentation of the main "family" theme is so richly satisfying.

Species II **

Edward Shearmur

TVT Soundtrax 9040-2. 11 tracks - 42:15

Review by Jesus Weinstein

Species II opens with a nice collection of sound effects before breaking into a version of Goldsmith's Alien motif. From out of this backdrop of found objects comes the horn theme used early in the Hoth sequence in The Empire Stikes Back, followed by the Journey to the Center of the Earth/Batman theme, as well as one of James Horner's favorite drum riffs... While it is not always productive to review a score by describing what else it sounds like, Species II presents so little that is interesting on a musical level, there really isn't a better way.

Species II is a rehashed bug salad, effective on a generic level at best. Most of the cues come off as agitated noise over a pedal point, with no substantial changes in terms of color, rhythm or harmony. Most of the tracks in Species II could be easily dissected into 60- or 90-second segments (in some cases even smaller) and rearranged at random without altering the musical effect. The vast majority of the cues are held together by either synth beats, harmonic drones, or plagiarized string ostinatos.

"Mating Season Begins" is a good example: it begins promisingly with a synthesized bassline pulse in 11/8 with the final three-eighths silent in each measure. The effect is somewhat like that of a broken record player. Unfortunately, this effect grows tiresome after several bars, even with the addition of a moaning woodwind-like sound. Two minutes into the track, there is finally a new event, but by this time it is seen for what it is: simply a contrast to that which came directly before it. The electronic, orgasmic howling that follows is sonically interesting, but not musically so. The one exception to the suspense/action mood is the touching "Eve's theme," but this has transitions uncomfortably close to Riggs's theme from Lethal Weapon, by Shearmur's mentor, Michael Kamen.

Like many action scores being written today, Species II borrows random moments from random scores, from Alan Silvestri-styled octatonic scales and brass crescendos (Predator), to Elliot Goldenthal moments (Alien3), to Kamen-esque racing, scalar string patterns (Die Hard). Even the extremely recent Starship Troopers by Basil Poledouris makes several guest appearances in this score. The average movie-goer is likely to respond to this music; however, the soundtrack connossieur will no suspense--only nostalgia. --Jesus Weinstein

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