I have been a comic book fan since high school and as such I was excited when I heard that Marvel was finally going forward with plans to turn X-Men into a live action feature. But my excitement turned to dread when I remembered Captain America, Spider-Man, and a whole host of others that turned out to be turkeys for Marvel. Then I heard that Bryan Singer was directing and I figured life was good again. Is the movie what I was hoping for? In a word, yes. I was hoping that the movie would remain true to the comic books while tranlating realistically to the screen. The end result was a film that reminded me of Superman: The Movie and the first Batman.
Michael Kamen was given the duty of writing the music and he is one of my favorites. His action scores are usually bombastic and catchy which is why I was looking for more of the same for this film. Luckily, the route Kamen took was more along the lines of Danny Elfman's Batman scores than on Elliot Goldenthal's interpretation of similar works. And as you may know, I prefer Elfman to Goldenthal.
What do I like about the score? Well, Take a listen to the first few tracks and you'll know what I mean. Death Camp reminded me of Childhood Memories from Batman, it is soulful and haunting at the same time. The very next track, Ambush again starts off softly and then erupts as the action unfolds. But the action style is serious, not comic-ish which is ironic in a way. Traditional action score listeners seem to prefer the sort of non-stop action heard in tracks like The X-Jet and Final Showdown. But the music shouldn't be like that the entire time, especially not if you want to the movie to have some more serious tones to it which is exactly what Kamen does. Some people didn't like this score for precisely that reason. I like it because of Kamen's choices and if you want something that is worthy of comparison to Elfman's Batman you should check this one out too.
Total time: 40:25
1: Death Camp (3:05)
2: Ambush (3:26)
3: Mutant School (3:48)
4: Magneto's Lair (5:01)
5: Cerebro (2:13)
6: Train (2:35)
7: Magneto Stand Off (3:01)
8: The X-Jet (3:47)
9: Museum Fight (2:21)
10: The Statue of Liberty (2:38)
11: Final Showdown (2:31)
12: Logan and Rogue (5:57)