Dinosaur

Review by Thomas Glorieux:

It is bound to happen that even before the summer starts, people have discovered their supreme time score to enjoy all summer time long. Try to hit your head against a brick wall, then you will feel what kind of impact Dinosaur created. James Newton Howard has finally discovered what magic lies beyond the frontiers of Hollywood when you break through with one massive soundtrack. In a way Disney is partly responsible for this success, for allowing James Newton Howard to score a computer animated tale, with no word of songs in the entire movie. Then you witness what a talented composer can bring, a score that jumps, bounces, amazes, blows away and restores the faith you once had in the seal of Walt Disney Pictures soundtracks. 50 minutes of immense music you receive where Howard lets loose the almighty goods of orchestra and African choir, with the initial amount of action and supreme film music. The score begins to amaze you from its early running time, the second track 'The Egg Travels' is bound to become one of the year's best film music moments, it offers the splendid quality of a track that blows you away, each time you hear it. 'The Courtship' brings the African drum sound of The Lion King back to life. Lebo M. adds his vocals to the rather upbeat and playful music of Howard. People might wonder why on earth there have to be African drum rhythms but I like it and people will do to if they enjoyed Lebo M's contribution to The Lion King.

Things become to sound rather immense with 'The End of Our Island' and one of the soundtrack's big highlights 'Raptors / Stand Together', here for the first time we hear the adventure theme. It receives an extreme action performance and directly shows up in the next 'Across the Desert', most prominently remembered for its amazing version. Up to the point for Disney fanatics to discover that not all sounds utterly gorgeous or melodically emotional. The second part brings a little less magic and a bit more loud action, sort of dinosaur action music with the same loud musical style of Jurassic Park. In a way a little less scary then John Williams' music but still offering its extreme proportions. But what did you expect when some nasty looking creatures start to fight? You accepted it with Jurassic Park and you will have to do it again with Dinosaur. Other highlights include 'Finding Water' and 'Breakout'. I still noticed this after several listens, the good pieces of the score are brilliant and exciting, the lesser parts sort of floated by without I ever noticed it. This is perhaps the only regrettable part of Howard's music. The score didn't seem to capture my complete interest, of course this is just a matter of taste. The soundtrack ends with high ground, bringing the main highlight of Dinosaur, the captivating main theme in 'Epilogue' again for a last time.

So I have to mention just that people have to be ashamed. If people simply started to listen to Dinosaur and figured out that Howard after all was more then The Fugitive and My Best Friend's Wedding, then you dishonest his other supreme scores. Waterwold, The Postman, parts of Alive and I assume a lot of other works captured too few that Hollywood spectrum, though they offered a lot in return. Dinosaur isn't the only score of Howard that amazes but it is nonetheless the first to capture this insane interest, and of course I can not blame them. 2000 offered its sheer size of fun and Dinosaur is part of that incredible contribution, bringing some of the best film music of the year, delivering the amount of action material to shiver any house from basement to roof and most importantly, it opened unseen doors for James Newton Howard. And you can see this only one way, positive for him and for the mainstream fans of film music. History repeats itself, Disney offered style with high musical standards, worship it while you can.

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Tracks

Single Disc

1. Inner Sanctum / The Nesting Grounds (2.57)

2. The Egg Travels (2.43) Excellent Track

3. Aladar & Neera (3.29)

4. The Courtship (4.12) Excellent Track

5. The End Of Our Island (4.01)

6. They're All Gone (2.08)

7. Raptors / Stand Together (5.37) Excellent Track

8. Across The Desert (2.25) Excellent Track

9. Finding Water (4.13)

10. The Cave (3.41)

11. The Carnotaur Attack (3.52)

12. Neera Rescues The Orphans (1.12)

13. Breakout (2.44)

14. It Comes With A Pool (3.01)

15. Kron & Aladar Fight (2.58)

16. Epilogue (2.32) Excellent Track

Total Length: 51.47

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

=== Link to Composer Site: James Newton Howard ===