Customer Reviews

Flightplan [Original Score]

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

 

 

Fans of James Horner get a mixed blessing with this score; on the one hand, it's almost wholly original; aside from a few brief statements of "Brainstorm" in the final track, little of the composer's penchant for recycling his own material is in evidence. On the other hand, the music is very moody, with lots of rumbling bass and pianos but little in the way of melody. Only in the final track is there a hint of a theme, and it's all too brief. The rest of the album is either suspenseful music a la "The Forgotten" (though less minimalistic) or action music a la "Aliens" (though less melodic). For fans of Horner and of the movie only.

Those negative comments are pathetic, at best. This score is wonderfully tense, and NOT AT ALL like "The Four Feathers" (which really made no sense in terms of comparison). The cold, atmospheric nature of this music really draws you in, and is both unsettling and highly enjoyable.

Ignore the reviews bashing Horner. Not only is the comparison game getting tired, it isn't even accurate to this score. People who think Horner does nothing but recycle himself (which I admit he does from time to time) should hear this score. While the film is iffy, the score does it justice, and doesn't sound much like anything else he's done. He mixes strings, gamelon, pipe flutes, prepared piano, and some percussive effects, with no brass or woodwinds, for a very dissonant score. I'd give this score 5 stars but for two reasons - I would have liked to heard a bit more recognizable theme, or motifs, as the other reviewer pointed out, and I felt that the score sounded much better in the film than CD to my picky ears. I think the dissonance and coarsness of the score required a more careful attention to the mastering than was perhaps given. Though again, some people may find I'm overly critical here.

Other original sounding scores from Horner of late worth checking out are Iris, House of Sand and Fog, Beyond Borders, and most of New World.

I just saw this movie yesterday, and man, was it good. Go see it if you haven't yet. It is really a must see. Especially if you love action/suspense/thrillers. Anyway, James Horner did a perfect job scoring this movie. All the music perfectly matched in the scenes that it played in whether it be sad, action, etc. There is a wonderful sad piano theme in here. It is really breathtaking. All in all, defintley recommend.

I like James Horner and even though it seemed like a short soundtrack, it was powerful on the level that was expected. I liked the music in the movie, but for the most part it was pretty much lost in the scenes except at the end.

Wow, people can cite passages on the soundtrack heard before in films 20 years ago, as evidence of Horner 'recycling'.

I cant do that. I just know that he and a handful of others write the most hackneyed scores around, making all films converge towards the mean, become homogenized.

How about something original here, like the music adding to the film by providing counterpoint, displaying complexity of emotion?

There are many examples of this, but usually not by composition but by incorporating world music or songs known already from pop music. The fact is, Hollywood composers are a cabal, and ingenuity is not valued.

The movie was so so, I was given this soundtrack as a radio station promo.

...another culprit is Danny Elfman, uniformly quirky, but thats another story...