Customer Reviews

U. S. Marshals: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

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

 

 

Jerry Goldsmith was one of the great film music composers..Think "Chinatown"."A Patch Of Blue","The Boys From Brazil","Mulan",ect,and you are thinking great soundtrack music...This score,however,is just so much action-oriented noise...Don't get me wrong,action-oriented noise ain't bad,but it has to be taken in moderation...To sit through a whole album of the SAME action-oriented noise,cue after cue after cue is just a tad much...Goldsmith was always one to write cues where they were needed,and not one to write cues where the on-screen action could hold its own without his help,so I have to wonder about how BAD this film must have been,if Goldsmith had to back it up with so many of the same sort of loud,brassy cues..If you are a Goldsmith completist then I would suppose that this album is a must,even though it is not an A-list item...Otherwise skip it and buy a really GOOD Goldsmith score..."Legend"..."Bad Girls","The Wild Rovers","Rio Conchos",
"Star Trek-The Movie"are all better bets than this mess.....

The 9 tracks that are on this soundtrack are all action!
But this is what Goldsmith does--compose awesome film scores like this and soundtracks like Air Force One,The Mummy, and Along Came a Spider, etc. The main theme is simply great. When you listen to this soundtrack you will almost think you are a Fugitve runing from the U.S.Marshals that were in the movie. U.S.Marshals and Air Force One stands out as some of Goldsmith's best work. Try the soundtracks from "The Fugitve","Air Force One".

I was so pleased that editor-turned-director Stuart Baird found a collaborator in composer Jerry Goldsmith. However, unlike "Executive Decision", which contains a fantastic main theme to listen and sing to, "U.S Marshals" does not have any; only a five-note leitmotif is heard throughout this thirty-minute CD. 'Nuggets & Bullets' is a fine first track that presents that leitmotif, and it is better exploited in 'Following Chen'. There is an interesting piano effect in 'Eyes On The City', and 'Free to Go' closes the album nicely. The action music is quite interesting as well, with good suspense, most notably in 'Sinking Plane' and 'The Front Gate'.
The reason I'm giving this album three stars out of five, is because thirty minutes is not much, especially since there is much more music heard in the movie. The lack of a solid theme is another letdown. At least the action leitmotif in this score is put to better use in "Star Trek: Insurrection".

After my disappointment with Jerry Goldsmith's score for "Air Force One", I have come to the conclusion that he goes above and beyond making up for it with "U.S. Marshals." He really does a wonderful job here. While not an official sequel to "The Fugitive", the movie heralds Tommy Lee Jones's return as Sam Gerard, and we get to see, in a spine-tingling and sometimes rib-tickling manner, if he's learned anything from his run-in with Harrison Ford five years before, as Gerard goes after Wesley Snipes.

Although Goldsmith continues his long-standing tradition of using a complete orchestra without any synthesizers, this CD comes about as close to James Newton Howard's "Fugitive" score that it can get while maintaining an identity of its own. The suspenseful sequences that make the "Fugitive" album so appealing to me are all here, as is a similar thematic trumpet solo that chimes in every now and then. I'm amazed at how enjoyable this score is to listen to.

While not being one of Goldsmith's best, this is a solid offering. I find that many of Goldsmith's soundtracks (and other scores and Classical works) require several listenings before you really appreciate the nuances. This is such a score. I listened to it a lot at my job (where we could play our own music) and I found that with each playing, it grew on me. I found that several tracks especially stood out after a while. I ended up liking this score quite a bit. It has a little bit of an "Air Force One" feel and energy to it. Though, of course, it is its own score.

If you are a Goldsmith fan, you will want this soundtrack. It will grow on you.

Even with the 30 minutes of music on the CD, it is enough to tell that this score is definately not one of Goldsmith's better ones. It's fair at best. The only good cue is the last one from the finale of the movie.

This is a score that you may not like the first time through. But listen to it again and again and it will begin to grow on you. The opening track, "Nuggets & Bullets" quotes Goldsmith's heroic 5 note motif for brass. The remainder of the tracks, with exception to the last one are all action and suspense filled cues with Goldsmith's usual snare drums, rumbling pianos, strings, and brass, along with his ever present synthesizers. "Sinking Plane" is a good action cue with variations of the main theme. "Swamp Search" is a huge suspense led cue with ominous strings and synths, bursting into nonstop Goldsmith action. "The Front Gate" is another sizzling action cue with hard hitting brass and pulsating snare drums. The final track, "Free to Go" is one of the best tracks, if not the best. Here, Goldsmith unleashes woodwinds and brass playing the main theme, which leads into a full orchestral rendition of the theme. If you are a Goldsmith fan or enjoy suspenseful action music, then you will most likely enjoy this score. Otherwise, you probably won't make much of it.

The 9 tracks that are on this soundtrack are all action!
But this is what Goldsmith does--compose awesome film scores like this and soundtracks like Air Force One,The Mummy, and Along Came a Spider, etc. The main theme is simply great. When you listen to this soundtrack you will almost think you are a Fugitve runing from the U.S.Marshals that were in the movie. U.S.Marshals and Air Force One stands out as some of Goldsmith's best work. Try the soundtracks from "The Fugitve","Air Force One".

This score still merits five stars compared to soundtrack slop like TITANIC, but this is very minor Goldsmith. There are moments of excitement (the sinking plane is quite thrilling) and the album makes an enjoyable listen for the composer's fans, but it's nothing special.