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X-MEN: THE LAST STAND
X-cellent
A review by JAMES SOUTHALL

Music composed by
JOHN POWELL

Rating
* * * *



Performed by
UNNAMED ORCHESTRA
conducted by
PETE ANTHONY

Orchestration
BRAD DECHTER
RICK GIOVINAZZO
KEVIN KLEISCH

Engineered by
SHAWN MURPHY
Music Editors
TOM CARLSON
PETER MYLES
Produced by
JOHN POWELL

Album running time
61:27

Released by
VARESE SARABANDE
Catalog number
VSD-6732

Album cover copyright (c) 2006 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation; review copyright (c) 2006 James Southall

Having written over a thousand reviews of soundtrack albums, it's rather inevitable that I've said a few things on several occasions.  Here's one of them: I don't like comic book films.  I don't really understand how anyone over the age of twelve does like them.  Maybe it's an American thing, but then again, given worldwide box office receipts for them, that can't be the case.  So I can't explain it.  Just one of those things, I guess.  But despite that, even I enjoyed the first two X-Men films - gratifyingly, they didn't seem to take themselves too seriously, they were full of good actors, and were very well done.  Sadly, director Bryan Singer hasn't returned for the third film in the franchise, X-Men: The Last Stand; in his place is Brett Ratner.

The series also gets its third composer.  It started off with Michael Kamen, who wrote an enjoyable if unusually-restrained score for the first installment; then came John Ottman's subpar effort on the second.  Now it's John Powell's turn - Powell has quickly turned into one of the most impressive composers around, with a gratifyingly individual sound and something of a unique voice marking him out as one of film music's brightest talents of the moment.  With that said, the most immediately-striking - and disappointing - thing about his new score is that the personal voice which has so pervaded his previous works seems to have fallen a little by the wayside.  Perhaps he's been more "hemmed in" by Ratner than by previous directors, I don't know - but X-Men: The Last Stand seems to be a lot more "standard" than most scores from the composer.  Fortunately, it's a very good sort of "standard", with plenty of fine material, but the personal voice - the thing which pushes this sort of score from good to great - isn't there.

In terms of quality, his music is nearer to Kamen's work on the original, but in terms of approach, it edges more towards the Ottman side.  It's a surprisingly bright work, accentuating the heroic deeds with colourful music.  While Powell does provide a new theme (heard first in "Bathroom Titles"), the series still doesn't really have a very memorable one after three attempts; but while it isn't particularly memorable, Powell certainly makes good use of it, anchoring most of his action music around ideas borne out of the short piece - chord progressions, harmonic ideas and so forth.

While there is some fine softer music here - "The Funeral" is surprisingly touching - it is with the action music that Powell hits home.  As already stated, it doesn't sound like Powell - in fact, it's more like a previous Ratner collaborator, Danny Elfman, and I wonder if he had been considered for the score but turned it down (there's only so many comic book films he can do, after all) - yet his music (particularly the Spiderman scores, I think) could possibly have remained in the temp-track.  They certainly seem to have been a bit of an inspiration for Powell.  

There are lots of tracks on this album - 27 - but strangely, many just run into each other, and it seems a little arbitrary that they are indexed separately at all (and I wish they weren't, but I guess it doesn't do anyone any harm).  One of the fine sequences comes in the middle of the album, with "Dark Phoenix's Tragedy" and "Farewell to X" combining to form a monumental piece of orchestral and choral action music which should please fans of modern action music by John Debney and Alan Silvestri and people like that.  And then the pièce de résistance comes at the end, with about the last quarter of the hour-long album being one long piece of brilliant, breathless action.

This album almost falls into the "guilty pleasure" category.  I know that I should take some sort of moral high ground and not really like it, but I can't resist it.  Even though I don't like the fact that Powell seems to have abandoned his own personal voice and joined the generic gloop that forms so much modern film music, it's simply extremely well-written and extremely enjoyable.  And, I guess - what more could you want?

Tracks

  1. 20 Years Ago (1:10)
  2. Bathroom Titles (1:09)
  3. The Church of Magneto / Raven is my Slave Name (2:40)
  4. Meet Leech, then Off to the Lake (2:37)
  5. Whirlpool of Love (2:04)
  6. Examining Jean (1:12)
  7. Dark Phoenix (1:28)
  8. Angel's Cure (2:34)
  9. Jean and Logan (1:39)
  10. Dark Phoenix Awakes (1:45)
  11. Rejection is Never Easy (1:09)
  12. Magneto Plots (2:05)
  13. Entering the House (1:18)
  14. Dark Phoenix's Tragedy (3:18)
  15. Farewell to X (:30)
  16. The Funeral (2:52)
  17. Skating on the Pond (1:12)
  18. Cure Wars (2:57)
  19. Fight in the Woods (3:06)
  20. St Lupus Day (3:03)
  21. Building Bridges (1:16)
  22. Shock and no Oars (1:15)
  23. Attack on Alcatraz (4:36)
  24. Massacre (:31)
  25. The Battle of the Cure (4:20)
  26. Phoenix Rises (6:29)
  27. The Last Stand (5:29)
    28.