- Composed by Rupert Gregson-Williams
- WaterTower / 2017 / 79m
Given that the same comic book characters keep getting the same films made about them over and over again, it’s quite a surprise that when Wonder Woman appeared in Batman v Superman in 2016 it was the first time she’d ever appeared on the big screen. Now she has her own film, with Patty Jenkins’s movie easily the best-received of the four “DC Universe” pictures to date. Gal Gadot reprises the role she started last year and I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of her in the coming years, with Wonder Woman’s baby presumably appearing in the next film (as you can see from the album cover, she is heavily pregnant during this film).
To say the DC Universe has been rather musically undistinguished so far would be quite the understatement, with a series of completely joyless scores that only occasionally venture away from the monochrome. Rupert Gregson-Williams’s Wonder Woman is a bit different, which is good: there is at least a bit of colour in it sometimes. But, sad to say, it certainly has problems of its own, primarily that it’s astoundingly bland and for the most part really quite dull.
Hans Zimmer introduced a theme for the character in Batman v Superman – an action motif that’s got character and is memorable, it was easily the highlight of that score. Pleasingly, Gregson-Williams uses it here too but it’s clearly not suitable as a general main theme for Wonder Woman, so he provides a new one of those. Well, I say it’s new, but really it’s so generic you’ll be forgiven for thinking you’ve heard it many times before. As soon as it’s introduced in the opening cue, “Amazons of Themyscira” (with Wonder Woman herself being the Amazon Prime), it comes across as a less memorable version of a Brian Tyler Marvel themes – then shortly after, when it’s forming the basis of the attempted “epic” action piece “Angel on the Wing”, it’s like being back in the early 2000s Remote Control world, specifically King Arthur or The Last Samurai.
If you (like me) find those two scores to be entertaining, I wouldn’t get your hopes up too high, because while at times it may have striking similarities, Wonder Woman doesn’t come close to matching them for entertainment value. After “Angel on the Wing”, barely anything happens for a long time on the album. Bland noodling takes us to the lengthy “No Man’s Land”, which is a clever title for a cue that in some ways epitomises the score, with its heroic anthem covering the first three minutes and never quite seeming to find any great identity, and then suddenly there it is, the Zimmer theme, which gives the whole thing a much-needed boost of energy. Like a lot of people, when I first heard it I assumed I was listening to an electric guitar, but it’s actually an electric cello (played by the popular Tina Guo) – I’ve genuinely no idea how she manages to get that sound from it, so hat’s off to her for it. Creative and distinctive, if there’s one bit of music from the score you will remember, it’s that. Eventually it gives way to more typical modern action music, which passes the time even if it doesn’t leave much impression – and finally, there’s “Time” from Inception – again.
The score generally becomes darker after that, with the focus turning more consistently towards action. The best cue is “Wonder Woman’s Wrath”, with its focus shifting between the Zimmer theme and the most conventionally heroic statement of the main theme. “Hell Hath No Fury” is an impressive, rather apocalyptic piece of action, marred only by the cheap sound. The soft finale to the score, “Trafalgar Celebration”, is really lovely – an old-fashioned romantic take on the theme, it sounds like proper film music and is very welcome. Finally comes the end title piece “Action Reaction”, which rather unexpectedly starts as if it’s about to burst into the theme from The Terminator before turning, surprisingly, into my least favourite cue on the album, a pretty horrible piece which evokes unpleasant memories of Batman v Superman.
I would much rather listen to this score than its predecessors in the series – it at least has some levity to it and avoids being a relentless onslaught against the senses – but frankly it’s still a disappointment. I don’t understand why so many of the scores for these films – and there are a lot of these films these days – don’t even attempt to leave a distinctive mark. Whoever is applying the pressure for them to be generally characterless musical wallpaper just doesn’t understand what music can really do for a film. Anyway, I know I’m fighting a losing battle there. Wonder Woman isn’t that bad, it’s just boring. A very decent 15/20-minute playlist could be made from it.
Rating:
**
Generally bland and dull, but does have its moments
See also:
Man of Steel Hans Zimmer
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice Hans Zimmer and Tom Holkenborg
Suicide Squad Steven Price
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