Composed by Harald Kloser and Thomas Wander- Decca DCAB001082402 / 2008 / 49:11
After Roland Emmerich’s fruitful relationship with David Arnold broke down for whatever reason, he made the surprising upwards step to John Williams (though as it turned out, his score for The Patriot was probably rather less satisfying than Arnold’s had been for the director’s previous films). I’m not sure quite what led him to Harald Kloser for his next film; and surely Kloser didn’t imagine when he accepted the assignment that he wouldn’t just become Emmerich’s composer-of-choice, he would actually end up writing the script for his next two films. The first of those was 10,000BC which apparently was not intended to be a comedy, though that will come as a shock to most people who’ve seen it. One might think that Kloser – having been so closely involved with the film from its very inception – would have been unusually inspired to write something a little special. One might think that, but such thoughts would I’m afraid lead to disappointment.
Instead, Kloser – with his rechristened assistant Thomas Wander now given an equal share of the billing – wrote as bland and generic a score as a film called 10,000BC could possibly inspire. (“Inspire” not being a particularly appropriate word.) The most enjoyable feature are a couple of Hans Zimmer-ish themes, sounding like leftovers from King Arthur or something, but they’re lacking any sense of Zimmer’s panache. Elsewhere, the echoes of Zimmer continue in the action music, but lack a Zimmer-style melodic core and so aren’t nearly so entertaining. A few moments of tribal music which are awe-inspiringly banal punctuate the album from time to time and are undoubtedly the worst part – the rest is absolutely by-the-numbers scoring, very disappointing. I’ve heard worse scores for films like this, but not that many which are so downright uninteresting. **
Very witty review, James. Thank you.