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Batman Begins: Soundtrack Review |
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While the instruments and feel of the music on the Batman Begins soundtrack does do the movie justice, a stronger ongoing theme would have added a great deal to the quality of the score.
Soundtrack Composer: Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard
Length of Soundtrack: One hour and 30 seconds
Rating: 3 out of 5
Tracks:
1 - Vespertilio
2 - Eptesicus
3 - Myotis
4 - Barbastella
5 - Artibeus
6 - Tadarida
7 - Macrotus
8 - Antrozous
9 - Nycteris
10 - Molossus
11 - Corynorhinus
12 - Lasiurus
When it comes to composers, you can rarely go wrong with Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard, both highly regarded within the industry. With Batman Begins, both composers took on the battle of bringing the caped crusader back from the dead in the form of a strong accompanying music score for the movie. And in the end, that is about all you receive - a score that does the movie justice, but is just standard on its own. And that's unfortunate because it dispels the rumors that two heads are better than one.
There are two main problems with Zimmer and Howard's score. First, there is no underlying theme. Music helps people identify with a superhero. John Williams Superman score is perhaps the most highly regarded superhero theme ever created. You hear the score and you think "Superman" with a capital "S". Spiderman has a theme that carries from one score to another and helps you identify with him. However, Batman Begins is missing that and it is a huge oversight. Music is vital to any movie and so is developing a well-regarded theme. Jurassic Park has a theme that nicely carries from score to score. When you listen to John William's powerful "Imperial March" you instantly feel the power of Darth Vader invading your mind. Batman Begins misses that altogether.
A second problem, and one that is so nitpicky that I didn't deduct any points for it, is that the labeling of the songs is too "unique". Instead of giving each score a title appropriate to it, you are given names of mostly different types of bats. And at first that may seem neat, but several titles mean the exact same thing. For example, look up Vespertilio in the dictionary and you see it means, "A genus of bats." Look up the second score, Eptesicus, and it means, "a genus of Vespertilio."
On the plus side, the score does the movie justice. Each instrument conveys the dark tone of the movie. The swirling bats you hear (and see) in the movie aren't a sound effect, but rather part of a nicely executed score that takes some real life elements and melds them into a number that helps move the movie forward. This works amazingly well in the movie, which is the intention. However, as a strict musical score that you listen to with your eyes closed, it can become somewhat of a distraction.
Batman Begins is an awesome movie. And part of what makes a movie great is the musical score. Just look at the terrible score for Tomb Raider and it's easy to see why that movie got such a bad rap. A bad score can pull a movie down whereas a good one can propel it to new heights. Batman Begins is one of the best movies of 2005 and both Zimmer and Howard played a role, even if the soundtrack fails to meet the listening standards of someone not viewing the movie while taking in the score. Track 6 (Tadarida) is a perfect example of this.
And there is one question that many may be asking. We all know that James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer are outstanding standalone composers who rank up there close to (but not on the same level as) John Williams. So why were both of them tasked to collaborate on Batman Begins? Collaborative efforts can sometimes stifle the creative mind of an outstanding artist. After all, Leonardo DiVinci didn't collaborate with Michelangelo to do the Mona Lisa. Doing such would create a loss of individual creative freedom. One can only hope that when Christopher Nolan directs the next Batman movie (and hopefully he does as he did a much better job than all past Batman directors), he will task one artist with the job of creating the satisfying musical journey and allow a theme to nicely develop so that fans can better identify with the world's best and most human superhero - Batman.
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