My brother often teases me so in order to get revenge I often act like an ape just to annoy him back. I do admit that it's childish but it bugs him to no end so I believe that my efforts are justified. I was surprised when he went ahead and bought me the soundtrack to the new Planet of the Apes since I felt that I would be able to use this as a background score to my ape-ing acts. I was expecting something like the exotically primitive score of the original by Jerry Goldsmith. When I popped this one into the CD player, I was stunned to discover that the music was a far cry from Goldsmith's score to the original.
While the new film is not as politically charged as the original one, this one does retain some seriousness by following the narrative set down by Pierre Boulle in his original book. So what we have here is a primitive score with a slightly edgier and militaristic sound. Do I mean that the only sounds to be heard on the CD are wooden drums and primitive whistles? Not at all. The wild percussion of Jerry Goldsmith has been replaced by the more orderly sounds of Danny Elfman's score. Due to this being more of an apes war movie, the music is much more mature and has a harder edge. Is this a good thing? Depends.
Most people who count themselves among Danny Elfman's fans probably became his fan after the Batman score was released. It was a showcase of his talent as a film composer and while few of his scores have lived up to the genius of that effort, in my opinion, this one comes close, but now close enough. Some of the early tracks like Main Title, and both Ape's Suite #1 and 2 present the main themes for the film which are dark with hints of action. This is similar to what made his Batman scores so great. There were rumors circulating at one time that some of the studio executives wanted Elfman to rewrite the score to be much more heroic. I for one am glad that Elfman went the way he did. Many people tend to think that by having overly heroic music makes a movie seem much more exciting and in some cases music does make the difference but on the whole I prefer the scores for films such as this to have a score that is not overly heroic.
No hero is perfect or infallible and the music should reflect the nature of the hero trying to make his way along. Case in point is Horner's score to The Rocketeer. In this case, Elfman gives equal weight to the heroics of Mark Wahlberg and the apes that populate the film. I have yet to watch the film but the music has made an impact on me and I think it is probably one of the better scores to have been released this year. The addition of the remix track by Paul Oakenfold doesn't detract that much from the score. It's placed at the end and is an interesting take Elfman's themes and dialogue from the film. Overall, I think this one will appeal to Elfman fans more than anyone else.
Total time: 58:27