By Brett Blake All things considered, 2017 turned out to be a solid year for the art of film scoring. The music of a film can make or break the movie, so important is it to the overall package, so I always enjoy getting the chance to share my thoughts on the subject. Breanne Brennan and I have already walked through the major film scores of the year (see our articles HERE and HERE), but as has become an annual tradition for me, it’s now my turn to definitively rank the 10 best! In most cases, I’ll be embedding one or two tracks for each score, as well as linking to some additional cues. Honorable Mentions • THE MUMMY (Brian Tyler) - “A Sense of Adventure” • THE POST (John Williams) - “The Court’s Decision and End Credits” • THE SHAPE OF WATER (Alexandre Desplat) - “The Escape” • COCO (Michael Giacchino) - “Coco - Día de los Muertos Suite” • ALIEN: COVENANT (Jed Kurzel) - “The Medbay” The Top 10 10. PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES (Geoff Zanelli) That’s right, the score for the fifth (!) PIRATES film has broken into my top 10, and I’m as surprised as you are. Zanelli resurrects Hans Zimmer’s familiar sound and themes for the series, but he adds some wonderful flourishes here, and brings several major new themes to the table, including an infectious action motif (which is a disguised variant on one of Zimmer’s existing themes) and a pair of ethereal, mystical melodies related to the supernatural treasure hunt at the center of the story, one for the young woman propelling the plot and the other for the artifact itself. Both get a workout in the score’s standout cue, “The Brightest Star in the North,” but the entire score is a relentlessly entertaining listen. “No Woman Has Ever Handled My Herschel” “Kill the Filthy Pirate, I’ll Wait” “El Matador Del Mar” “The Brightest Star in the North” 9. IT (Benjamin Wallfisch) On the surface, one could be forgiven for finding this score to be a little on the “mixed bag” side; indeed, there are certainly several sections of mostly forgettable horror underscore, complete with loud orchestral outbursts that are hard to really enjoy. However, looking beyond that, one will find a far greater number of moments of eerie, symphonic mystery or delicate longing evoking childhood friendship. These moments, not the overt horror stuff, represent some of the most effective passages of the year. “Every 27 Years” 8. VALERIAN AND THE CITY OF A THOUSAND PLANETS (Alexandre Desplat) Desplat has been receiving positive nods for his THE SHAPE OF WATER score (which appears among my Honorable Mentions above), but his work for VALERIAN is easily the superior effort. It is a deft, sometimes dazzling blend of orchestral and electronic elements, packed with personality and color. There isn’t as much thematic invention as one might like, but there are some great highlights here, including moments where Desplat’s quirky creativity and playfulness can’t help but make score fans smile a bit. “Big Market” 7. SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING (Michael Giacchino) The ever-prolific Giacchino gets a shot to follow in the footsteps of other Spidey composers like Danny Elfman, Christopher Young, and James Horner, and he delivers a positive, upbeat, and hummable main theme for the hero that fits the character very well. Additionally, Giacchino brings energetic action material to the table that not only provides the score with some catchy action motifs, but also puts his main Spider-Man melody through its paces and reveals it to be a quite versatile little theme. “Academic Decommitment” “Drag Racing / An Old Van Rundown” “Monumental Meltdown” “A Stark Contrast” “Spider-Man: Homecoming Suite” 6. DARKEST HOUR (Dario Marianelli) Pretty much a textbook example of the Dario Marianelli sound, but that’s not a bad thing, and it’s extremely effective for the movie it’s supporting. It’s a score dominated by piano and string-driven rhythms. There’s a propulsive quality to much of the music, evoking the feeling of a situation ever-changing and moving somewhere important. Delicate when it should be, grand when it needs to be. The piano writing and performance are superb throughout. This is a score that treats a fairly pivotal moment in world history with the weight and reverence it deserves. “Where is Winston?” 5. A CURE FOR WELLNESS (Benjamin Wallfisch) Wallfisch had a prolific 2017. In addition to his score for IT (my #9 score of the year), he composed the music for ANNABELLE: CREATION, and was also heavily involved in DUNKIRK and BLADE RUNNER 2049, both with Hans Zimmer. However, his 2017 magnum opus is surely this grandiose, bombastic, at-times-operatic thriller score, for which Wallfisch leaves it all on the field. Want memorable themes? They’re here. Want big, sweeping orchestration? It’s here. Even want a splash of 1980s-inspired synth elements? They’re in here, too. This score is Wallfisch’s coming out party, an announcement that he’s ready for anything anybody could throw at him. “Our Thoughts Exactly” 4. MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS (Patrick Doyle) Doyle has always been a reliable composer, but with this score, he proves to be one of our most undervalued. His work here is fabulous, conveying the glamour and exotic flavors of early 20th century travel, the particular peculiarities of the story’s detective hero, Hercule Poirot, and the unsettling mystery at the center of the tale. But beyond that, the emotional core of the movie is where Doyle really cuts loose and blows the doors off by delivering an achingly beautiful theme (presented at-length in the showstopping “Justice” cue) that is deeply affecting in its simplicity. It’s truly exquisite scoring. “The Wailing Wall” “Jaffa to Stamboul” 3. WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES (Michael Giacchino) Giacchino returns to close out this latest APES saga with a confident and complex piece of work which continues what he started in his previous score for the series, but adds to that a level of naked emotion and maturity. There are dark, gripping passages in here, which really build some wonderful tension and hammer home the undercurrents the movie is attempting to explore. That said, this is far from a dour listen, as Giacchino can’t help but have some fun here, with a major new “traveling” theme that is a bit of an earworm, as well as some moments of unusual orchestration that subtly call back to Jerry Goldsmith’s idiosyncratic scoring for the very first PLANET OF THE APES film. “Assault of the Earth” “Exodus Wounds” 2. THOR: RAGNAROK (Mark Mothersbaugh) A stunningly pleasant surprise. Frankly, I had no idea Mothersbaugh had a score of this scale in him. He deftly marries some retro, synthwave-y, electronic coolness with an absolutely massive and unabashedly sweeping orchestral backbone. What it lacks in long-lined melodies (though there are certainly themes), it more than makes up for in scope and harmonic intensity, and Mothersbaugh even brings back thematic material from the previous THOR movies. Some have been waiting for a score with personality from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and this has personality to spare. “Thor: Ragnarok” 1. STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI (John Williams) My number one pick could have been nothing else. At age 85, John Williams has again conjured up some musical magic and delivered another STAR WARS score of tremendous quality. In some ways, this score is more like a traditional sequel score than any of the previous STAR WARS entries, as Williams dedicates himself here to expanding upon the set of themes he introduced in THE FORCE AWAKENS (for Rey, Kylo Ren, and the Resistance, particularly), while also brilliantly weaving in a slew of classic themes from the Original Trilogy. Themes for the Force, Leia, and the Rebels feature heavily, but Williams also strategically uses the Imperial March, the Emperor’s theme, Yoda’s theme, and - beautifully - Luke and Leia’s sibling theme. All of these are implemented by Williams for peak dramatic effect, and the result is hugely effective in the film. But wait, there’s more! Since this is a new STAR WARS movie, of course we have new themes -- one to represent Luke Skywalker’s exile, and another for one of the movie’s major new characters, Rose. Williams combines these two new themes in concert suite format in the cue “The Rebellion is Reborn,” and it’s a highlight of the score, second only to “The Spark,” which features a spine-tingling climax of epic proportions that only Williams could have written. It is kind of astonishing that Williams (at his age) has been able to keep the quality extremely high, and THE LAST JEDI is a supremely worthy addition to the musical pantheon of the series. “Main Title and Escape” “The Supremacy” “The Rebellion is Reborn” “The Spark”
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