Superman Returns –
Music By John Ottman From The Motion Picture/Sound Of Superman (CDs)
Sound: B Music:
B-/B
So here we are in a new era of Superman. The character has been showing up officially
on film since the Fleischer animated shorts of the early 1940s, making it 65
years with Superman Returns. An
important aspect of The Man Of Steel is the music that backs him. In the best Superman adaptations, a building
crescendo and/or at least building, upbeat theme song best served his
exploits. That is why those animated
shorts and the 1950s TV series with George Reeves tend to be so
remembered. By the 1978 feature film,
which Bryan Singer has rightly dubbed a genre classic (though he may mean
beyond that), with music once again being a key element.
This time, it was John Williams in a wave of exceptionally
prolific work on films like the original Star Wars and Brian De Palma’s
grossly underrated The Fury. In
the midst of all that, he pulled off Superman – The Movie in both its
theme and the vocal classic Can You Read My Mind. He nailed the instrumental theme so well
that even the terrific recent animated series did a variation of it and the
mixed live action shows that followed also owe much to it. Needless to say, Singer and his longtime
composer/editor John Ottman rightly realized Williams' song had become as vital
as the themes from Mission: Impossible, James Bond and The Pink
Panther.
Ottman makes wide use of the theme for his otherwise new
score of the film, though Williams also haunts the score with the choir style
in the intense, early Rough Flight sequence that shows the money on
screen as much as any spectacle in the film, but it works very well. There are also slight touches of the Strauss
classic Thus Spake Zarathustra which as served as the theme from Stanley
Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey in its exploration of “man and superman”
as it were. Some of the more personal
moments are not unlike the narrative context John Barry does so well in and out
of the Bond films, while Ottman has good instincts about music in general.
Besides scoring almost every Singer film (except the first
X-Men) and other films like the sonically jumpy Halloween: H20,
the underrated Gothika, the oddly interesting remake of House Of Wax
and his second of three superhero franchises so far with Fantastic Four,
he has also done the film editing (and in effect some of the sound editing) on
most of the Singer films and on Superman Returns, which puts him in a
unique position of craftsmanship and his judgment has been pretty effective so
far.
However, having to juggle so many materials originating
from other people holds back his work here, yet it is still an interesting
score even when it does not always work.
It is not to say it is a failure, but to say it has ups and downs like
the film itself. At its best, it is
really strong, though the choir concession seems almost like pandering to a
modern commercial audience. It has the
potential to mean more, but the later music pieces and narrative that follows
never addresses that. However, it also
has better producing and engineering than almost any instrumental score this
year and for as bad and bad sounding as so much movie music has been this year
that only helps.
The score is also an Enhanced CD, offering the teaser trailer,
final trailer, footage of the recording of this music and extended preview for
the Look Up In The Sky documentary everyone needs to see. On top of this CD, Rhino/Warner Music have
issued a collection of vocal songs called Sound Of Superman that features
Rock genre music related in one way or another to The Man Of Steel. This is usually done by the studios and
record labels just to cash-in, but this set does not have the pretension of
telling us it is “music inspired by the film” that abuses the word “inspired”
unbearably. As a matter of fact, it is
exceptional.
The tracks include:
1.
The Academy Is... "Superman" (The Clique/R.E.M. cover)
2.
Plain White T's "It's So Easy" (original)
3.
The Sun "(Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman" (The Kinks cover)
4.
Motion City Soundtrack "The Worst Part" (original)
5.
The Films "Sunshine Superman" (Donovan cover)
6.
Maxeen "Save Me" (original)
7.
Paramore "My Hero" (Foo Fighters cover)
8.
American Hi-Fi "The Rescue" (original)
9.
The Spill Canvas "Saved" (original)
10.
Jack's Mannequin "Meet Me At My Window" (original)
11.
Nightmare Of You "Waitin' For A Superman" (The Flaming Lips
cover)
12.
The Receiving End Of Sirens "Superman"
(Stereophonics cover)
13.
Royal "Brainiac's Daughter" (Dukes of Stratosphear cover)
14. Sara Routh "You're Never Gone"
(original)
I was very surprised at the talent, production quality,
energy and impressive performances track after track. Some “genius” pointed out that Donovan’s hit Sunshine
Superman was not about The Man Of Steel, but
obviously missed the joke here. For
that matter, the song still reminds many of The Man Of Steel just the
same. Add that the band The Films came
up with an original way to cover this song that has to be heard to be believed,
it is so good.
The original tracks are also very good, while other covers
are very worthy. Maybe some of these
acts will be one-time bands, but this collection proves that such sets do not
have to be run of the mill or so prefabricated that they should go straight to
the cutout bin. That makes for two
surprisingly solid music CDs to go with the new film.
The PCM 2.0 16bit/44.1kHz Stereo sound on both discs are
very good, with nice depth and detail in Ottman’s orchestrations and richness
in the Rock songs. They are so good,
you’ll wish they were multi-channel Super Audio CDs. Playback is certainly state-of-the-art for the nearly 25-year-old
format and some of the better-sounding discs we have heard this year.
As a side note, we also have the theatrical review of the
film at:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/3931/Superman+Returns+(Theatrical+Film+Review)
I liked it more than our fellow critic, but more on that later. We also have coverage of VCI’s animated
Fleischer Superman shorts. Since my
review, someone pointed out that some color boosting accompanied the fuzzy
image, but I stick by the often-great color the disc offers. Since that review, we have heard Warner is
going to issue the shorts later in 2006 in restored prints. Despite all the other versions on the
market, we will STILL recommend the VCI edition, which you can read about at:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/3830/Superman+–+The+Ultimate+Max+Fleischer+Cartoon+Collection+(VCI)
- Nicholas Sheffo