Top Ten: Scores in Bad Films

Sometimes films are just bad. People clearly don’t bring their A-game to the production and the whole thing ends up rotten. This list is dedicated to the composers that didn’t get the memo stating that the movie they were scoring was indeed not worthy of their work.

Without further ado, we present the Top Ten Scores to Bad Films:

10. New Moon – Alexandre Desplat

The sole redeeming factor of the otherwise dreadful Twilight movies is music. They consistently get great artist to compose original songs for the movies and most of them are pretty good. Part of that is also Alexandre Desplat’s great score to New Moon, which captures romance and creates a haunting atmosphere that the films themselves could never dream of. And yes, I do realize that I said something positive about Twilight.

9. Van Helsing - Alan Silvestri

That guitar riff is more memorable than Hugh Jackman‘s bland chest-hair-and-CGI-adventure from 2004 that completely failed to update the Dracula mythos in a meaningful way. How the man behind the iconic Predator theme got mixed up with the production is anyone’s guess, then again he did also score Beowulf and Judge Dredd, but he delivers the goods here.

8. Transformers: The Revenge of the Fallen - Steve Jablonsky

Jablonsky is Michael Bay‘s go to guy for ‘hell-yeah-fist-in-the-sky’ scores. The man is undoubtedly  talented, if you haven’t heard the name then you’ll recognize this piece of music from The Island that has featured in countless trailers. While Bay made by far his worst film, Jablonsky took cues from Linkin Park’s New Divide, composed for the film, and spun his score from it. The end result is great and probably the best thing that can be said about Revenge of the Fallen.

7. Hulk - Danny Elfman

Ang Lee’s jolly green giant movie was wildly miscued and boring. It did succeed on three fronts though: Motion Capture, Editing and Score. To this day, Elfman’s main theme remains the most memorable part of the film. Its ability to raise intrigue is indisputable and is among the strongest superhero scores of all time.

6. Alien: Resurrection – John Frizzell

The film that shot the Alien franchise in the heart was actually made by competent people, for the most part. The director had made Delicatessen and The City of Lost Children and went on to make Amélie. Let that sink in for a moment. Most of the cast have done good work and the script was written by Joss Wheadon, of all people. But as is all too common, the studio stepped in, meddled with everything and ruined everything. Save for the score. Frizzell avoids cheaping out by just reusing cues from the older films and delivers something new and honestly good.

5. The Tourist – James Newton Howard 

The Tourist bombed when it was released at the start of 2011, both critically and at the box office, and deservedly so. The film was rather boring, did nothing new and while Johnny Depp seemed at least slightly interested the same could not be said of his on-screen love interest, Angelina Jolie. On the other hand, Howard kills it with a 60s Retro/European inspired score which incorporates slight electronic elements and drums that seamlessly blend with the strings. The result is a terrific score. If only it had accompanied something other than Jolie and Depp’s vacation video.

4. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End - Hans Zimmer

They kinda lost it completely with the third Pirates film, which was overly long and got too convoluted for its own good. However, the same can not be said of Zimmer’s score, which was as riveting as always. He used the old beats to great effect whilst adding new triumphant themes, ensuring that the film can never be accused of sounding bad.

3. The Planet of the Apes – Danny Elfman

Elfman pretty much always delivers (see above) and Planet of the Apes was no exception, even though Tim Burton went off the rails. The promise of greatness that the main title music sets up never comes to fruition and we’re left with a largely uninteresting film with bland performances and unexciting set-pieces.

2. Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace - John Williams

There is no denying it. Episode I was a crushing disappointment. Not only did it not live up to decades of expectations but it was also a pretty darn bad film (Full disclosure: I love Star Wars with all of my heart). But I’ll be damned if the music is ever called anything other than amazing. Williams doesn’t rely on the old cues and delivers a score that speaks for itself by sending uncontrollable full body shivers through your system when you listen to ‘Duel of Fates’.

1. The Last Airbender - James Newton Howard

That a film so earth-shatteringly horrible should have one of the most gripping scores in recent cinema is mind-boggling. Listening to the score by itself might actually convince you that The Last Airbender is a grand adventure epic, but it’s not. The film is hollow and soulless, full of terrible performances and cringeworthy writing, in stark contrast to the musical quality.
If there’s a bigger chasm in quality between film and score than that, please enlighten me.

So, what do you think? Agree? Disagree? Want to throw expletives at me on Twitter? Feel free to do so @Sveppi and @Filmophilia.