The score, despite the title, is a lot warmer than the first. Elfman has spun a new theme from the main theme of the first movie which acts as a general 'love theme'. It's the main theme of the movie.
All the other themes from the first return; Christian's theme is a lot more prominent this time around. But while in the first score his theme was very forceful, here it's always played sensitively. Therefore, the skittish highlights from the first score (Ana and Christian and Variations on a Shade) are gone. Instead we have a more straightforward romance score, which makes sense given what happens in the movie.
Ana's theme returns to but it takes a backseat to the love theme and Christian's theme. There's a really cold rendition of it in 'Bathroom Encounter' that's quite eerie and it's played on electric guitar near the end too.
It's a very nice score but I did miss the drive of the first; Elfman is given all of the emotional beats of the movie but none of the sex.
Thanks for the review, ddddeeee -- really looking forward to this score. His first entry turned out to be one of the surprise favorites from his entire career for me, and I was thrilled that he returned for this one.
I wonder if Danny Elfman (or David Buckley) were listening to RAMBO 3 a lot before they wrote the new theme for this film? Anyway, this score is a lot warmer and nicer than the original, despite the Jerry riff distraction.
Deeply sorry if this has caused some trouble, I've taken it down now out of respect to your erudite analysis. To clear up some things: I copied your text to take inspiration from and quote it; I didn't mean to shamelessly label it as my own analysis. However, due to unexpected time issues and mismanagement, the whole thing went online without any sort of proof-reading or further re-edits - which is the reason why it was taken down now as this is definitely not the way I like to operate. Once again, my deepest apologies for this incident, I can fully understand your point of view.
