Disney's 1991 film about a comicbook hero in an innocent prewar America did infamously poorly at the box office, despite a magical air pervading it throughout.  Joe Johnston is a talented director who's made some excellent family films, making its failure all the more surprising.  Anyway, the magic extended to James Horner's beautiful, uplifting score, one of his very finest.

Everything that is (or, perhaps, was) so good about Horner's music is here in abundance.  It starts off in the opening cue, "Take-Off", which introduces the brilliantly fluid main theme, first on piano then in the full orchestra.  Horner's never written a better one.  Being a family film, the action music retains that delightful magical air, and the lengthy "The Flying Circus" is a definite highlight.  This momentum is not sustained through the whole album and there is some slightly meandering, low-key material from time to time, like in "Neville Sinclair's House", but it always remains melodic and pleasant.

An absolute highlight, not only of this score and indeed not only of Horner's career, but of all film music, is the stunning "Rocketeer to the Rescue" at the end of the album: a wonderful set of variations on the main theme, with a thrilling ending (which may be from Star Trek II originally, but we'll forgive Horner this time since it's so thrilling).  Unmissable stuff.

It is sometimes so easy to forget how brilliant Horner once was, given the uninspiring, limp fare he has mostly given us over the last few years, but brilliant indeed he was, and The Rocketeer is without question an essential ingredient in any soundtrack collection, wonderfully bridging the gap between golden age exuberance and modern-day dramatic sense.  For a musical feeling of flying as good as Waxman's Spirit of St Louis or Goldsmith's The Blue Max, here you go.

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