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On the one hand, I get why some people would be less than taken with this - there are already a number of iconic Elfman Christmas scores, and this one isn't really doing anything remarkably new that we didn't get with Edward, Nightmare, or even Family Man. That said, I think it words very-to-extraordinarily well in the film, and on the album there's a subtlety to its development that does reward multiple listens. Like a lot of post-2000s Elfman scores, there are distinct and original themes, but because Elfman keeps slipping them in and out of new variations and harmonies, they're hard to catch if you aren't actively listening for them. I really love the "Lost Lonely Boy" melody though, and it gives the film an occasional dose of early-90s lyrical Elfman melancholia that just about makes some of the biggest emotional beats land (it's about the only part of the film that isn't actively getting in its own way in that regard). I also appreciate that he actually adapted the melody from Fa-Who Foraze and consistently threaded it through the score itself.
The film itself I thought came close to working in the first act, but after establishing a tragic backstory for the Grinch in the early going, the film seems to be so afraid of things getting too dark that it stumblingly rushes through the actual story it's supposedly adapting. I know the conventional wisdom is that these films don't work because you can't turn a short picture-book into a feature-length film, but I don't even know that this is Illumination's problem. Both The Grinch and The Lorax movies have a weird structure that seems to involve adding about an hour of fluff to the film's front half, then frantically rushing through the book portion as though they're trying to compress War and Peace into an episode of Wishbone.
What really sinks this for me though is the hideous, mawkish attempt at rewriting the actual verse from the Seuss book for Pharrell Williams' narrator. Every time the film comes close to landing an emotional beat, in comes the narrator, explaining in patronizing and metrically-sloppy verse basic plot details that are already perfectly clear from the music and the animation. I mean, we're talking about a book that billions of kids have been committing to memory from age 2 for over 60 years now - who exactly are we dumbing these lines down for? A cut of this film that removed 95% of the voiceover and most of the dialogue might just about work.
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Still no word on a CD release then...?
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It's almost ironic that both Elfman and Newton Howard wrote violin concertos recently and I like both of them a lot better than their newest blockbuster scores.
It's almost as if, when they have free reign to write personal music from the heart, the results turn out better than when they're churning out (likely temp-tracked) product for the latest big budget Hollywood property. 
I love Patrick Doyle, but I know, if he suddenly announced a new violin concerto AND a new franchise score (even for Kenneth Branagh), which of the two I'd be more looking forward to musically. (To be completely transparent, if Branagh himself was given free reign on a new Shakespeare adaptation or something similar, I might possibly go the other way.)
Yavar
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Posted: |
Nov 23, 2018 - 8:06 PM
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By: |
SchiffyM
(Member)
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Lots of mickey-mousing
I actually don't think there's a lot of mickey-mousing in this score – actually, much less than I was expecting. Most of it is pretty musically cohesive.
That said, it's generally a bit manic for my taste, and there's not a lot of surprise here for those of us familiar with Elfman (and yes, I'm sure he was hired to give us exactly that). To my taste, Elfman overdecorates his themes these days, and buries them under waves of orchestra and chorus. It's a valid choice, but not my favorite.
So like Thor, I prefer Elfman's smaller, indier scores these days. But not because there's very much mickey-mousing here, because I just don't hear that.
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While I don’t like everything in the score - I wish the Grinch’s “mean” motif was more than just a bumbling version of Prokofiev, and I cringe a little when Elfman pulls out “film composer dad rock” to score Cindy and her friends’ Oceans 11-style capers. But I have to say, this is the most an Elfman fantasy score has connected with me in some time. I love the way Cindy Loo Who’s theme is maleable enough to seem charming-but-not-cloying when it’s scoring her antics, but malevolent when it it scores the Grinch’s heist. And there are at least 4 cues that tap into a sense of emotinal rawness that I rarely hear in Elfman’s modern day children’s scores - the melancholy “Better this Way” and “Lost Lonely Boy”, the euphoric second half of “Welcome Christmas”, and the fragile “Apology” (strong shades of Family Man on the last one). Maybe if you’re turned off by the manic portions, program those 4 tracks into a surprisingly depressing suite!
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