A review by JAMES SOUTHALL

It may be a facile argument to make, but I'm never one prone to missing out on such an opportunity: it strikes me that Hans Zimmer is the McDonald's of the film music world.  Wherever you go in the world, whichever country you visit, chances are you'll not be too far away from a McDonald's, where you can buy some food (well, some loose definition of it) that tastes absolutely identical to a purchase made 3,000 miles away in another branch of the corporation.  There's no local flavour or consideration: it's one-size-fits-all.  Now, think about Hans Zimmer's film music.  Whenever he's scoring an action movie - whether it be ancient Rome, American firefighters, a nuclear submarine, a prison break from Alcatraz, whatever - he wheels out the same bag of tricks, making the vast majority of these things almost entirely interchangeable (give or take the odd distinctive theme or two) and rarely specific at all to the project-at-hand.  Now, this approach serves some composers quite well (there has hardly been enormous diversity in, say, John Barry's latter-day output) but for it to keep working, time after time, the composer needs something special (like Barry's ability to produce knockout romantic themes seemingly at a whim).

Really, though, what are we to make of Hans Zimmer's approach?  It just about goes without saying that all of his action scores are great fun - Gladiator, Backdraft, Crimson Tide, The Rock, all the rest - but doesn't it also go without saying that continually presenting the same thing, slightly repackaged, eventually renders the newest version of it as somewhat redundant?  What is there that I could say about King Arthur that I haven't already said about those other scores?  Or am I perhaps being unfair?  Zimmer certainly seemed to be going through a phase of taking a more restrained, long-lined approach to this kind of thing (well, The Last Samurai, anyway) - but then that was a far more considered, slow-moving movie than any of the others.

King Arthur rather oddly purports to tell the "true" story of the knights of the round table and all that jazz, despite many scholars now agreeing that virtually none of it actually happened.  There's no sense of listening to anything historical from the music - it's as modern (in the sense of being "pop classical") as you get.  Hugely entertaining, of course, but whereas music like this seems entirely appropriate for Backdraft or Crimson Tide or non-Zimmer projects (which may as well be) like Armageddon, it seems as inappropriate for King Arthur as it did for Gladiator (or indeed Pirates of the Caribbean).  The action is almost relentless, with all the elements we have come to expect (slightly cheap-sounding brass, layer upon layer of percussion, choir, etc) and it certainly sets the pulse racing and, taking the album purely in isolation and not considering the music in the movie, it is very difficult to resist.  I have to say though that this is a purchase of questionable use to anyone who has most or all of the other releases I've mentioned.

Tracks are long, and generally run into one another, but this is certainly an entertaining hour's music.  The album opens with a song (with Zimmer choosing against wailing Middle Eastern vocals and going instead with the favourite of film composers everywhere a decade ago, an Enya soundalike, Moya Brennan).  It's a pleasant enough song, but the finer contribution from Brennan comes in the opening of the final track, "All of Them!" which sees her voice being used in an odd fashion highly-reminiscent of one or two of Ennio Morricone and Edda dell'Orso's collaborations.  All in all, this is an impressive album, but one that must lose points for the shameless repetition from previous works.

Tracks

1. Tell Me Now (What You See) Moya Brennan (4:34)
2. Woad to Ruin (11:31)
3. Do You Think I'm Saxon? (8:42)
4. Hold the Ice (5:42)
5. Another Brick in Hadrian's Wall (7:11)
6. Budget Meeting (9:43)
7. All of Them! (10:24)