Customer Reviews

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

... ok, maybe not 'ever', but it's close.

Edward Shearmur has always impressed me. Ever since 'Cruel Intentions', with his urban-sophisticated, techno-inspired themes for the socially elite, I've followed his progress and evolution and have been constantly amazed. His 'Reign of Fire' and 'Count of Monte Cristo' scores were both excellent, and hey, I even liked 'K-Pax'.

The score to 'Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow' presents a whole new side to Shearmur, and also an interesting problem. I was impressed with the score, I thought it hit in all the right places, had all the right elements and took me on an audio thrill ride that I enjoyed completely. The problem comes in with Shearmur's new step into the "Epic Theme" arena. Before, he had his style, his electronic-infused, unique flair for subtlety and also a gritty ability to get the listener into the film. Now, he's getting into the full blown, orchestral suites of majestic marches and rousing action cues.

Invariably, someone's going to compare him to Williams, or Horner, or Goldsmith... they'll suggest that he's just another in a long tradition of tired examples of the action-adventure genre.

in a way, they'd be right...

Shearmur's score is as much tongue in cheek as it is an authentic and exciting sample of his newfound abilities as an action-score composer. Half the reason this score works with -this- film is that it sounds so campy, as if he were calling back to the serials and early space epics that inspired the film itself. The genius of this score is that, like the film, it draws on the elements of past action films, be they WWII aerial battles, grand military marches or sweeping action themes. The rest is Shearmur's brilliant attempt to infuse his own subtle charm and sly musical wit into what otherwise could have been 'just another action score'.

It's true, many of the tracks on this CD carry that same epic scope and feel that we've all come to know and love, with slight variation from their older siblings, but there are a few tracks that stand out. I personally enjoy the main theme, I think it's a fun poke at any other score that ever took itself too seriously. "Totenkopf's Ark" will continue to be a favorite of mine for it's frenzied strings and thundering percussion. The latter half of the CD holds the real gems though, from "Finding Frankie" on to "Back to Earth", the latter of which has one of the best intros into a theme I've ever heard.

Lastly, there is Jane Monheit's vocal track, her version of "Over the Rainbow". In all my experience with scores, the vocal selection at the end of the soundtrack has always been one to skip, something that fills the time and shouldn't even be there to begin with. This will be the first time I have -ever- considered the last-track song to be -absolutely essential- to the score itself. Monheit's version is an exquisite sample of her talents, and one I can appreciate over and over again.

London Metropolitan Orchestra under the direction of our composer Edward Shearmur, who just composed this lavish score "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" (2004/107 Mins), featuring Jude Law as Joe "Sky Captain" Sullivan, Gwyneth Paltrow as Polly Perkins, Angelina Jolie as Capt. Francesca "Franky" Cook, Giovanni Ribisi as Dex Dearborn, Michael Gambon as Editor Morris Paley, Ling Bai as Mysterious Woman and Omid Djalili as Kaji ~ film director Kerry Conran spreads this sci-fi plot into many areas of adventure, action, thrills and mystery loaded to the hilt with all four ~ this an original motion picture soundtrack takes each cue in the film to another level and then some ~ this is why we showed up for the review, in the next paragraphs we'll dive into the music.

Composer Edward Shearmur had his work cut out for him, but he comes through with flying colors ~ his score has many composers ingredients that blend into plaids of John Barry, Elmer Bernstein, Jerry Goldsmith, James Horner, Maurice Jarre, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Alfred Newman, Miklos Rozsa, Max Steiner and John Williams ~ not bad company to keep.

The story-line and score are a perfect match in masterpiece art form ~ many tracks in spectacular full scale orchestration, striking and touching the hearts of the listeners ~ one can only sit back and soak up such cues as "THE WORLD OF TOMORROW", "THE ZEPPELIN ARRIVES", "THE ROBOT ARMY" ~ just wait until you hear "CALLING SKY CAPTAIN" and "THE FLYING WINGS ATTACK", dazzling darkness and light of explosive power and dizzying beauty abound ~ Shearmur hits his peak in Golden-Age compositional intellect while exploring the deepest troves of musical emotion as one of the enormous productions ever to emerge from Hollywood ~ the closing bonus track is Harold Arlen's standard classic "OVER THE RAINBOW", by vocalist stylist Jane Monheit, touching arrangement by Edward Shearmur that brings back so many memories when we first heard this song...gotta love it!

Total Time:57:56 on 18 Tracks ~ Sony 92932 ~ (9/07/2004)

I bought this soundtrack score a few days ago and have become totally immersed in it. Edward Shearmur has done a fantastic job with capturing the excitement of "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow." I feel that many people overlook the importance of the music when watching a movie. Just think about it, would "Star Wars" be what it is without that grand epic musical introduction at the very beginning? No, it wouldn't. Same thing applies to "Sky Captain." This movie needed this type of music to make it what it is. This score is just phenominal. I would even say it's better than the actual movie (I think the movie could have been better in some aspects, but since this review is for the music, I'll stick to that).

I do have one minor complaint though. The first track, supposedly the main "theme" to the movie, is way too short, clocking in at only 1:07. I wish Shearmur had elaborated more on it. It's such a cool piece of music, but ends before one can fully get into it. It's true that this "theme" re-appears at several points during the rest of the score, but it isn't quite the same thing. The final track, Jane Monheit's "Over The Rainbow," isn't vital to the soundtrack but is a nice addition and serves as a closing farewell.

All in all, I rate this score a 4.5, but I'll round up to 5 just because the music is so cool. Recommended to any fan of the movie, or any fan of the action/adventure musical score genre.

Dumdumdumdum, dumduhduhduh, DUH, DUH, DUH...

Wow, this is a tremendous soundtrack. It is a great compliment to a great film. It conjures up comparisons to
Raiders of the Lost Ark, and is a rare cinematic treat. I highly reccomend it.

Wow! There's been a lot of talk of comparisons between some up and coming composers and the likes of John Williams (Michael Giacchino, David Arnold) but I would have to say that on the basis of this superior soundtrack, Edward Shearmur could easily walk off with that mighty accolade - I would actually describe this soundtrack's flavour as a cross between Raiders Of The Lost Ark and Silvestri's The Mummy Returns, both classics.

Sky Captain's harmonies, orchestration and execution by the London Metropolitan Orchestra are first rate and have an intricacy that Mr Williams would be quite proud of I'm sure. Whether or not the orchestrations are the work of Shearmur himself or an experienced orchestrator I'm not entirely sure but that doesn't detract at all from Shearmur's obvious superior musical talents - the basics of the music here - and where a composer's talents really lie - namely the melodies, harmonies, developments, representation and musical complexity, are all so good that I only hope Shearmur can one day be given the right material and embark on a larger body of work, something to call his own Star Wars.

Sky Captain does sound a lot like vintage Williams and there are some rather engaging themes weaving their way throughout the cues. The main theme is perhaps not as memorable as one could have hoped for but it is certainly heroic enough, is nicely harmonised and in another sign of Shearmur's talent, is well developed so that it at times also suits a more romantic or sombre mood.

Sky Captain is really a non- stop action affair with a few light moments but the (now quite fashionable) powerful overblown trombones are never far away and when the choir is used (The Robot Army), it is awesome.

If I were to offer any criticisms, I would say that the rather beautiful romance theme is unfortunately underused and could have perhaps been adapted into some sort of bonus concert cue a la John Williams. Also, some of the cues do run seamlessly into one another and whereas on CD this is not a problem, my MP3 player inserts a little gap between them; so perhaps there could have been some reorganisation of the cues such as having one cue but two or three titles within that cue, again a la John Williams.

However, I have no real criticisms about the music and I would say not to listen to people who complain that it's all been done before. Sure, it's reminiscent of past classics but unlike other such soundtracks, Sky Captain stands right up there with them. In short, this is the most enjoyable soundtrack I've had the pleasure of listening to in a very long time and I look forward to following Shearmur's musical career with pleasure.

I tried to sum up the feeling that the music instills in me when I listen to it in those three words--Uplifting, heroic, triumphant. Granted, that is what I get from the main theme. The music is otherwise very good at setting mood and moving the action in the movie. I am not sure about originality of certain parts. As I was listening to it, I could help but notice bits from other movie scores I am familiar with including Batman (Danny Elfman), The Rocketeer (James Horner), and even Spider-man (Danny Elfman). Although there is no copying or anything, I do think that Mr. Shearmur happened to tread over trodden ground. That didn't spoil it for me, as the main melodies and themes for each of the characters remained original and very appropriate (for Polly, for Frankie, etc.). I think Mr. Shearmur did very well to hit the "thrill buttons" a sufficient number of times in the score without it getting boring or simply overdone. Afterall, hearing the music of the hero saving the day is why I went to see the movie in the first place. I also like that each time, it is just a bit different (slower, faster, grander orchestration, etc.) I also liked the fact that the soundtrack begins and ends with that theme music. It is very satisfying. So, if you want to start your day off thinking you can take on the world (of Today or Tomorrow) and triumph, this music will certainly help you feel like you can.

Esward Shearmur's score for Director Kerry Conran's "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" is a very pleasant surprise as is the film itself. Conran's rather unique production was very dependent upon a solid adventure (1930s-1940 serial redux)score and Shearmur came through with flying colors. Beginning with a main theme in the vein of John Williams' "Indiana Jones" theme that comes up as fast as a P-40 Warhawk in the main credits, Shearmur quickly moves to music that sets a darker tone in "The Zeppelin Arrives," and a clearly menacing tone for "The Robot Army." But easily the best part of this very good score emerges as the RAF aerial flying platforms appear out of the clouds. Here Shearmur gives us yet a new heroic theme for flight officer Frankie ("Finding Frankie" and "Manta Squadron"). It might be a stretch to say that this is Shearmur's most impressive work to date. But it is worthy of note. The film and the soundtrack recording are a good deal of fun. Nicely produced and packaged.

What amazed me more than anything else was how, during the film, I found myself thinking "wow, that's like the Jawa music from Episode 4" or "wow, that's like one of the music cues from Raiders" ... yet, at no point did I feel that the music was in any way derivative of any other composer. Hard to explain. One word for this music: GREAT.

The bottom line is: this is a GREAT soundtrack. My guess is that Shearmur and the film's director (Kerry Conran) must be big Star Wars fans because it seems that a number of the music cues are consciously paying homage to Lucas's obsession with "great movie serials of the Golden Age" and there was a very obvious use of the number 1138 in an early scene of the movie.

All things considered, this is a great set of themes and I feel it will pass the ultimate test: you can put it in your CD player and relive exciting moments from the film BUT you can also put it in your CD player and enjoy the music all by itself.

Many reviewers have praised Edward Shearmur's score for "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" in a somewhat backhanded way, referring to its being derivitive of the John Williams style. I find this comparison to be amusing because John Williams himself, in all of his movie scores, blatantly steals from many better composers than himself, such as Richard Wagner, Igor Stravinsky, Gustav Holst and Sir Edward Elgar, to name but the most obvious and most lawsuit-proof - that is - safely dead long enough for their music to have become public domain.

That being said, Williams is a superb orchestral craftsman and at least chooses the best from whom to steal. And in this score, I think Edward Shearmur has shown himself capable of giving Williams, the current reigning champion of the sci-fi/adventure/action film genre, a serious run for his money.

It would be fascinating to hear what a Danny Elfman might have done had he been tagged to pen this movie score, but I cannot see how Williams could have topped it. Most enjoyable.

An old adage says that everybody knows who Picasso is, but nobody knows who invented the paintbrush. Call this movie a demo for a really great new paintbrush.

This is one of those movies which expands the range of things that a movie can be--honestly I've never seen such a wonderful look in a film, retro and futuristic at the same time. After about a century of moviemaking, its a pretty good achievement to come up with a whole new look.

The basic problem with this movie is that it just tries too do too much, and achieves too little. It goes from the sublime to the rediculous when it goes from cool-robo-gizmo-gadgets to trying to be Jurrasic Park. Dinasauroids just don't belong here.

What would have worked much better is instead of trying to fit all of these adventures into one movie, they should have just introduced the great new look in a tight, fast-paced, 70-minute movie showing some Sky-Captain derring-do. They could have started a whole new film franchise: Sky captain goes underwater, sky captain goes to the island that time forgot, etc etc.

But noooooo...by packing all these different scenarios into one film, they seem to have exhausted all of Sky Captain's possibilities, to the point that he was boring by the end of the film. Instead of teasing us and leaving us wanting more, the whole sky-capitain thing seems been-their-done-that before it even got started.