Batman & Robin (Double CD Bootleg)

Review by Thomas Glorieux:

While Batman, Robin and Batgirl are awfully PC, Elliot Goldenthal surely isn't. In soundtrack land he is what people call a difficult breed. The man can surely inspire a movie and raise the effect more with tone than with theme but he is still worshiped by some, despised by the most. I'm not surely the fan of his music and except for his recent Final Fantasy, he didn't do miracles for me when it came down to movie music. But I always believed that his Batman scores were better than his average horror scores. The music presented more fanfares than usual and for once the heavenly choir was all over the score. Of course both scores are rather obscure sights these days and while picking my list through some bootleg titles, I went with hesitation for the double CD of Batman & Robin. This bootleg has some weird things going for it (I'll explain later) and even if its not all that horrible and more importantly not horrendously one still can not be satisfied by the end result. This double CD release offers you the maximum of Goldenthal's composed score, both discs are limited to 60 and 64 minutes of music. The first is the most approachable if most of all the one with the biggest diversity. The Batman fanfare was always one of the better moments of Goldenthal's career and opens the first score with pride in 'Main Title' before the sound effects start to clang and bang (representing Clooney and O' Donnell becoming Batman and Robin). The choral awe by then takes over, representing the dark wonder of the cave, heroes and vehicles. This is without doubt the best moment of the score.

The evil theme, variation of the Batman theme is first discovered in 'A New Villain / Batman Drops In' and will repeat usually throughout the score. Of course the ruckus is usually close by but in truth, it isn't that much discovered throughout the entire score. 'Museum Fight' has some good heroic fanfares by the way and is one of the better moments of score. But by track 7 you discover the first real oddity, simply in the middle of 'Poison Ivy / Mr. Freeze's Plan', right after the introduction of the sleazy, sexy theme for Uma Thurman's character, Mr. Snow walks in. You remember back that Schwarzenegger was teaching his villains to sing to that kiddy song in the movie, well that kiddy song simply mixes itself without interruption into the score and disappears like that without a trace to let the track end with Freeze's wife choral theme. This is truly odd, it doesn't destroy the listening experience but more the consistency overall. Following in line is 'New Family' which is probably the lightest stuff that Goldenthal so far has written, introducing us to lovely Alicia Silverstone and the less dark nature of Wayne mansion. 'Poison Ivy Arrives / Gotham Observatory' has that fanfare of Alien 3 like whirling strings before the exotic tones truly reflect Poison Ivy's nature. One of the best translations to music is the sexy entrance music that underscores Ivy's seduction dance to all the people at the ball. Still, the most horrendous thing comes from 'Mr. Freeze Crashes the Party' when an electronic noise starts to wreck the fun.

And by then you start to notice the terrible mixing quality. Without you touching your volume knob, the music moves from front to background like it has to back up something, before returning to its normal state. Very weird is this. Also a strange moment is 'Freeze on Ice / Renovation' offering us in 7 minutes pop music (a song without warning shows its face), classical inspired waltzes, piano driven music to even jazz. The music is truly as schizophrenic as Goldenthal himself. To remember from the second disc is in fact the continuously poor mixing and the intrusion of the pop music that appears truly without warning, like starting the second disc and most stupidly filling the entire track 'End Credits No. 1', which has even two pop songs. Also Danny Elfman is noticed with a slick return to Beetlejuice in 'Escaping from Arkham / Mr. Freeze's Revenge' (3.20), this will satisfy those Elfman knacks. In the end it is fair to say that both discs truly contain perhaps several minutes of truly horrendous noise but it is the rest that fails miserably in its working. The mixing from volume which keeps distracting you, the intrusion from kiddy songs to pop music to hard rock that keeps disturbing you and the immense time of music. Put one disc on the market with the best tracks, the best quality of sound and a respectable price and you still have one of his most accessible releases from the year. But now, it somewhat hurts the impression. I give both discs 3 stars but you have to know that the presentation is not worthy of that rating. Batman & Robin may consist of worthy score material, may offer the fan of dark music 2 hours worthy of score, it is still the overall presentation at the end that decides your gut and that one is truly feeling the burden of Mr. Snow. Ridiculous for those who know what the hell I mean.

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Tracks

Double Disc

Disk One: 60.40

1. Main Title (2.19) Excellent Track

2. A New Villain / Batman Drops In (5.37)

3. Museum Mayhem (5.54)

4. Frozen Stiff / The Jungle (2.31)

5. Bane Is Born (4.34)

6. The Nature Of Family (0.47)

7. Poison Ivy / Mr. Freeze's Plan (4.58)

8. New Family (3.57)

9. Poison Ivy Arrives / Gotham Observatory (1.56)

10. Mine For The Greening / Sad Moments (3.11)

11. One More Diamond / The Ball (4.47)

12. Mr. Freeze Crashes The Party (4.19)

13. Chilling Chase (2.33)

14. A Matter of Trust (2.20)

15. Freeze On Ice / Renovation (7.09)

16. Batman Overture (3.39)

Disk Two: 64.52

1. Night Streets / Dick Saves Barb (4.32)

2. Secrets Revealed / Alfred Is Dying (1.43)

3. Escaping From Arkham / Mr. Freeze's Revenge (14.21)

4. Adam And Evil (0.54)

5. McGregor's Syndrome (0.32)

6. Partners Part / Seeing The Light (5.16)

7. Access Allowed / Trust Me Now / Barb Suits Up (7.10)

8. Ivy's Garden (4.39)

9. Ice Malice (3.04)

10. End Credits No. 1 (4.53)

11. Our Heroes In Batvehicles / Obligatory Final Confrontation / A Helping Hand (13.10)

12. Partners X 3 (2.03)

13. End Credits No. 2 (2.24)

The use of artwork or photos is posted for non profitable reasons

=== Link to Composer Site: Elliot Goldenthal ===