Customer Reviews

The Island [Soundtrack]

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Steve Jablonsky worked on quite a few works with Hans Zimmer but only with the "additional music." Now Jablonsky is flying solo. He's worked on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Steamboy and The Amittyville Horror. With The Island, we get to hear Jablonsky's abilities on action scoring.

The Island score starts off with some good guitar music accompanied by some brass roars with a male chorus every now and then intensifying every time it appears. After a minute or so the music becomes uneasy as Ewan McGregor's character has a nightmare about drowning. The theme is carried over across the album used tastefully never overwrought like, say, James Horner.

Two tracks that I did not enjoy were "Mass Vehicular Carnage" and "Blow." "Mass Vehicular Carnage" didn't sound like score material, its more of a hip-hop song because it contained lyrics. "Blow" is not found anywhere in the movie and its not even part of the score. Its probably one of those "inspired by" rock songs.

The score is good action percussion. There are some romantic moments in the album where Steve uses his guitar motif softly (e.g. This Tongue Thing is Amazing). "My Name Is Lincoln" brings all the themes of the album together very nicely with a lyricless chorus.

Michael Bay usually hires someone from the Media Ventures' gang to score his films. Steve Jablonsky met the challenge and, in my opinion, succeeded. I recommend this score if you're into the electronic Media Venture works.

This is a great score. I loved the music during the movie and bought the CD immediately afterward. There are a lot of small pieces throughout the movie, not enough to make whole tracks by themselves. I thought the score was well-compiled and mixed to make unique individual pieces that can stand alone. As one person wrote, the track titled "The Craziest Mess I've Ever Seen" doesn't match the music used in the film during the main chase scene, but I think it was expanded and edited to include short action sequence cues from other parts of the movie. Again, I think this is nice work compiling and mixing to get all the music from the movie into workable tracks.

This music is slightly more electronic than any of Hans Zimmer's recent works. For those familiar with Hans Zimmer's scores to Crimson Tide, The Lion King, Mission Impossible 2, Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, Pearl Harbor, and The Last Samurai, none of these are more electronic than the music in The Island.

The two tracks titled "Mass Vehicular Carnage" and "Blow" should have been left out. They aren't score music; they are songs probably played in the background (almost inaudibly) at some point in the movie.

The music is varied throughout the score, the themes aren't overused -- and again, I think this is due to careful mixing and editing. The soundtrack to Requiem for a Dream fails because it is a collection of every short snippet of music in the film, made into individual tracks. I also recently bought Trevor Rabin's score to Armageddon. There are a couple great pieces and a couple great themes, but The Island score is far better. This is great music!

This is a hauntingly good score to a pretty darned good film, which for whatever whim of the masses was less than well received. I you like taiko drums, fast paced and wonderfully executed "world beat" music, this is definitely the score for you, I've played it again and again and it only gets better with each listening.

i saw the movie and absolutely loved it, a plot that is interesting and action sequences that just dont stop. what i also enjoyed was the soundtrack, i fell in love with it almost immediately. my friend purchased the soundtrack like right after we left the theater and ive borrowed it like 100,000,000 times. it isnt as great as the music in the movie, they must have edited it in the movie. but its one of those cds that u can put in ur playlist and listen to forever...

I absolutely LOVE the Soundtrack. The first time i watched the Movie, i was so drawn into it because of the music. Yes, there are some songs that wern't on my "A" list, but then with some others, it just takes my breath away.

The orchestra is strong and intense. At times you can say that its my "meditation" music, because I relax the most when I listen to it.

To me, it was an absolute enjoyment, to others it might not be, because they only like the music cause it "went well" with the movie and that was how they came to get the soundtrack.

Because I am a devoted fan to the movie "The Island" I loved it :)

My most favorite song out of the whole sound track is "My Name Is Lincoln" as well as "This Tongue Thing's Amazing" are my most absolute favorite!

I'm afraid to say that I find this CD somewhat difficult to recommend as a whole. Steve Jablonsky is a prodigiously talented composer with a bright future; as his score to 'Steamboy' and trailer music and additional themes for Pearl Harbor attests. And although Jablonsky has done his job well here - the Island score works splendidly in the film - on CD the persistent throbbing electronica and pervasive percussion comes off so harshly as to the point of being too abrasive for the listen to be enjoyable (and I'm a big fan of electronica!)

In comparison to something like Spy Game by Harry Gregson-Williams, which is a deep, subtle and nuanced electronic score, the Island is stark and aggressive, with much repetition, few discernable themes, and occasional sequences of outright garish and incoherent noise generated mostly by garbled electric guitars. With all this in mind, I feel the CD generally hovers around the two star mark.

However, there are a couple of BIG standout moments; namely 'The Island' theme itself; first featured on the opening track, and then later on track 10 and elsewhere, has a beautiful, haunting, ethereal quality to it, reminiscent of the opening minute of 'Injection' from the M:I-2 score. Similarly, 'This Tongue Thing's Amazing' and 'You Have a Special Purpose in Life' have long, stretches of warm orchestral music that are decidedly enjoyable and memorable.

Finally - and most importantly - the finale, 'My Name is Lincoln' is such a standout track that it deserves special attention. It's a warm, uplifting, inspiring theme which borrows heavily upon Gladiator's 'Now We Are Free', but with an epic choral backing which pushes it to even greater heights. It's incredible, probably one of my top 10 favourite film score tracks of all time, seriously.

If ever there was an album that you should consider purchasing as individual mp3 tracks, this one is it - a purchase of tracks 1, 2, 6, 10 and 14 will pretty much cover 95% of all the good bits.

Unlike the previous reviewer, I'm very much a fan of Media Ventures style of scoring. Hans Zimmer is one of my most favourite composers, and his protege Klaus Badelt is high on my list as well. The Island, from Zimmer protege Steve Jablonsky, was one of my most anticipated Christmas presents, and while i'm not completely overjoyed with the result, i'm not too disappointed either. This is a competent score that was just simply not what I expected.
What I expected was simple - a Zimmer or Badelt score. What I got was closer in vein to Badelt's electronic Recruit score than The Rock or Batman Begins. This CD is much more techno and electronic than I expected, and as a result, it meanders. The best moments of the score are the first and last tracks (excluding the pointless rock song at the end) because of their moving orchestral themes. Indeed, the last track is one of the most powerful tracks I've ever heard. Everything in between ranges from dark electronic suspense to techno action music - the latter of which is more welcome and heard less than the former.
Ultimately, is this CD worth your money? Yeah, sure. I enjoyed it, while not as much as some Media Ventures albums, it has it's moments of greatness....but just know that when you listen to it, expect more techno than action.
cheers
KZ

This, in my opinion, is the first great score from composer Steve Jablonski, who went on to score the two Transformers films. There is a lot of interesting music on this CD, which includes 14 tracks of original music and the song "Blow" by the rock band The Prom Kings. I don't really care for the rock song, but I do like the rest of the music very much.

Initially, I bought the CD just for track 14, titled "My Name is Lincoln", which is definitely the highlight of the CD. This was before I knew Amazon was selling MP3 songs individually. And to this day, The Island score is still not available on iTunes. There's nothing special about the design of the CD or the paper insert, so purchasing the MP3 version might be the more cost-effective solution. If you do buy the whole CD like I did, you might find yourself enjoying the majority of the music. I am very satisfied with this score - it works great in the film but is also fun to listen to on its own.

My quest to find this soundtrack (though at the time, I didn't know this was the one I was looking for) began when I saw the Flyboys trailer a while back. The music in the trailer was amazing, and I was determined to find where it came from.

My search led me here, to Steve Jablonsky's The Island, and specifically track 14; My Name Is Lincoln.

Even if 'Lincoln' was the only track on the score, it may be worth the full price. Okay, not quite, but the song is VERY GOOD! Unfortunately, the rest of the score isn't quite as good, though it isn't terrible. It does not offer any strong themes or particularly memorable moments, it's kind of just there. I'm also not a huge fan of the last song, which I deleted from my mp3 player.

One should buy 'The Island' for 'My Name Is Lincoln,' then one should check out the Transformers score, Jablonsky's masterful work...that one is very good!

The brooding post modern industrial feel to the songs on this soundtrack give it a feel of epic proportions. I simplely love it!!!...dark,foreboding, and eerily brilliant on every track....thank you Mr. Jablonsky!