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Mediocre film, terrible score. Stick with the classic original.
I'm listening on Spotify at the moment. Opening track sounds like Last of the Mohicans... choir comes in a little later and I'm not sure what significance this has to the subject matter. It is neither French nor South American.
Next track is more electronica soundscape with some quasi avant gard stylings thrown in.... Maybe it makes sense in the film but as a listening experience, it doesn't make me want to watch this remake (to one of my all time favourite films and my favourite Goldsmith score no less).
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I wouldn't call it "partly" a remake of the 1973. I saw it yesterday, and it seemed like, except for the opening and closing scenes set in France and the omission of the leper subplot, it was far more a remake of the 70s version than a new adaptation of the book(s).
William Goldman had been the first writer on the 70s version but didn't end up getting credit (it went to Dalton Trumbo and Lorenzo Semple Jr.), and he said one important choice he made that ended up in the final script was where to end the story, since apparently the book goes on long after the big jump.
And I suspect the importance of the Charriere/Degas friendship was a big screen invention, though I haven't read Charriere's original so I can't be sure.
Am I the only one who found lines like "Turn that frown upside down" and "You had one job to do" even more jarring than the American accents? (though in their defense, no one tried to sound French in the Schaffner version either).
If nothing else, it made me miss the Goldsmith score, especially his amazing end title. But then, most films these days make me miss Goldsmith scores.
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Good to know Scott. I saw the trailer and I was totally uninterested. I did give the new score a play but it doesn’t seem to tied to the narrative stylistically and attempts to go into experimental territory just for the hell of it (music concrete and spoken word). Bizarre
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The Buckley score was adequately effective in context but, like so much film music today, ultimately unmemorable.
Rami Malek's vocal inflections seemed like an homage to Hoffman's portrayal in the 70s version, and there were times early on when Hunnam looked a little like McQueen, though after they aged him in the later scenes he looked a little like Daniel Craig.
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This sort of travesty happens when someone with more money than sense secures the rights to a "branded" property. It joins the unholy ranks of unnecessary and inferior sequels cluttering up TV schedules and forcing people to clarify when they mention PAPILLON as one of their favorite movies -- "I mean the Steve McQueen version, of course."
PAPILLON (the Steve McQueen version, of course) is conspicuously imperfect (some overacting and shoddy makeup) but still better -- and certainly more enjoyable -- than just about everything else.
No Respectable Gentleman is pleased that THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY (1979) flopped, preventing (at least for now) a dreadful remake with Henry Cavill and Benedict Cumberbatch, music by Henry Jackman.
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In this modern age, it's so difficult where to assign blame for a score like this. Filmmakers have much more control over music than they used to (back in the 70s, the composer would show up on the scoring stage and that would be the first time the director would hear the full version of their film's score). Now with all these mock ups, directors can micromanage and dictate the terms of the music in a way they never used to be able to. And we are seeing more directors influenced by pop, rock, electronic, all forms of music far from orchestral. Sometimes this works but the lack of thematic writing has hurt the art of film scoring, not made it better IMO. That approach worked for 50 + years but in the last 15, we seem to have moved far away from it. I listened to this music and I cannot recall a single note, pretty bad considering I have a knack for remembering music quickly.
It's possible Buckley had no clear directive or just tried to make the best of a bad assignment. Perhaps he didn't want to tread in the style that worked so well for Goldsmith. Hard to know. Perhaps some interviews will reveal. As pure music, it's not horrid. Some of the choral writing is rather nice, but not for this subject matter. It feels completely displaced.
Morricone carved a new sound for the western with his Leone scores but was always careful to inject enough core associative elements that could still bind his new style with the genre it was written for. This is perhaps an unfair comparison as that was a completely different era of filmmaking but I'm just trying to offer up an illustration of a successful break from convention in a genre.
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Good heavens! Thor, you have completely lost your senses!
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Yes, it's not bad, but saying you prefer it over the Goldsmith is nothing less than a sacrilege.
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LOL Thor...
David Buckley Papillon: "WOW!!!! A candidate for my Top 10 list of the year when I do that in a few months. Superb score."
Jerry Goldsmith Papillon: "Goldsmith's score is fine."
Yavar
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And I genuinely can understand such a fleeting perishable sentiment, but Thor my friend, in this case you are playing with fire! 
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Goldsmith fans...no doubt some of them have totally lost contact with reality.
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