Music Composed by James Newton Howard
Rating: ****

It seems the bigger the movie the hotter the post-production heat. King Kong, Peter Jackson’s $200 million follow-up to his multi-Oscar-winning The Lord of The Rings trilogy is this year’s most high-profile movie. Raising the stakes is a media mindset that the 1930’s set Kong, with it’s romantic subplot, could reach Titanic numbers. Titanic, may I remind you, is the highest domestic (North America) grossing motion picture of all-time, with over $600 million in theatrical business. How Kong will live up to that number remains to be seen. It’s no surprise then that the gruelling process of bringing King Kong to the screen claimed some victims, in this case, most unfortunately, was composer Howard Shore, who scooped an entire bookshelf of Oscars for his work on the Rings trilogy. Regardless of the circumstances behind Shore’s departure (and there was plenty of conjecture online and in the press), James Newton Howard was hired to step in and deliver almost three hours of music in about as much time as you have to pay your Visa bill. With the efforts of three conductors, additional composers, a platoon of orchestrators, hundreds of L.A.’s finest musicians and vocalists, unknown quantities of cola and coffee, plenty of bad scoring-stage snacking and lots of high-tech equipment (Howard and Jackson collaborated via video feed half-way across the world), somehow, as if by miracle, James Newton Howard has become the unsung hero of King Kong. His score works quite well in the film, by enhancing not only the awe-inspiring visuals, but also providing emotional oomph to the relationship between the blonde and the beast.

James Newton Howard

With little time to sit and percolate material, Howard has nonetheless imbued his score with a solid set of themes to keep his score from dissolving into bland bombast. The main theme, first voiced in “King Kong”, the film’s title card, is an icy, menacing eight-note brass motif that will be worked, and re-worked to fit all applications, including the churning “It’s In The Subtext”, “The Venture Departs” and “That’s All There Is…” among others. The score’s second major theme is for Ann and Kong, and it is here where Howard really excels. His knack for touching melodies have enhanced movies as atrocious as My Best Friend’s Wedding, and here he connects Ann and Kong with a delicate motif for piano, strings, and harp before passing it to plaintive brass and then woodwinds. Simply gorgeous stuff.

The mood is kept light with interludes from JNH’s, er, goofy material for film producer Carl Denham’s character (”Defeat Is Always Momentary”, “Two Grand”). It’s a swaggering, swinging, period idea that alternates with chugging, mickey-mouse precision. These moments may shock the first-time listener, but in many ways are what help this score from becoming seventy minutes of mind-drilling action music.

The album takes a decidedly ominous angle halfway through with “Something Monstrous… Neither Beast Nor an”. That James Newton Howard keeps these underlying, dialogue-heavy cues interesting is a real testament to his talent. Most of these kinds of cues barely aspire beyond low synth effects or long, sustained notes. But Howard brings a real grand, reverence to them, particularly when he has the strings play only once (”The Venture Departs”, 2′45) light, sliding chords similar to Goldsmith’s “The Light” motif from Poltergeist or the “Well of Souls” material from Williams’ Raiders of The Lost Ark.

Perhaps where the score stumbles slightly is the action material, which suffers from the compressed production schedule. Action music often requires a composer to either blow through the cue with an emphasis on volume or construct the material to work with sound effects and on-screen action. With King Kong, there seems to have been very little time to compete with the barrage of sound effects in the dinosaur stampede sequence, so Howard’s “Head Towards The Animals” attempts to juice the action with crushing percussion rhythms (in the film this cue barely raises above the sound effects but provides more then enough extra to the on-screen calamity). Kong’s action music rarely sounds as crackling as Howard’s usual, and really takes several passes for the listener to pick out what the composer is attempting to do. On first listen it may sound like a serious of orchestral effects piled over pounding hell drums, but Kong’s louder moments should slowly win you over. Still, none of the quick-limbed action music here is as immediately satisfying as say, Howard’s other replacement score, Waterworld. Besides “Head Towards The Animals”, the album’s action highlight is “Tooth and Claw”, where Kong battles a trio of unrelenting T-Rex. Howard opens the cue with a triumphant chorale fanfare and restatement of the main Kong theme before hitting us with some of the biggest, bad-ass brass ever (1′07-1′14). What follows is fairly standard Howard action-fare, but thrilling regardless.

Howard’s album is presented out of film sequence order, and this works in it’s advantage. Despite the fact that the ink was probably drying on these discs as they were shipped, a great deal of thought seems to have gone into the sequencing of the disc. This is a solid approximation of the scores major highlights. There is the gorgeous and scaled down “Beautiful” and “Central Park”, the frightening second half of “Last Blank Space On The Map” and “Something Monstrous… Neither Beast Nor Man” as Kong makes his first appearance (and JNH makes his nod to Max Steiner’s score for the original Kong). A diversity of material here helps to keep things interesting.

Surprisingly this score sounds like no other. Believe it or not, there is no slamming finale ape-ing (pardon the pun, no, really) “Bishop’s Countdown” from Aliens. There isn’t a lick from Pirates of The Caribbean (or Woicjiech Kilar’s Dracula for that matter!). The answer to bad temp-tracks may be that every film should require only five weeks to write and record a score!

The album concludes with four tracks, “Beauty Killed The Beast”, parts one through five. They are the emotional climax to the film and album. As Kong ascends the Empire State Building as the sun rises, so too does our investment in the character. By the time boy solo Ben Inman sings Kong’s last rites, our eyes get misty. While the boy solo may be a eye-roll-inducing composer crutch, you can’t help but think that the tiny voice is Kong’s, transmitted through the poor, misunderstood lug’s eyes as he gazes upon his object of love for the last time. Howard takes us through a major musical journey with these final tracks. From the gung-ho militaristic drum and brass stabs in track 18, to big chorale flourishes emphasizing the scale and scope of the onscreen visuals. It all ends with a fitting adagio for Kong (”Beauty Killed the Beast - IV”, and with “Beauty Killed the Beast - V”) bringing a satisfying, if somewhat bittersweet end to the proceedings. It’s mpossible not to be moved by the conclusion of King Kong, and after seeing the movie, it’s very difficult to not be moved by this album.

Five weeks is all it took for James Newton Howard to write and record this score. He may have unwittingly set a new standard for what is capable from the men and women who write film music for a living. I can’t help but be thankful that despite all of the pressure and negative hype surrounding King Kong, both the film and score are a resounding creative success.

Music Composed by James Newton Howard; Conducted by Pete Anthony, Mike Nowak, Bruce Babcock; Orchestrations by Pete Anthony, Pat Russ, Brad Dechter, Jon Kull; Bruce Babcock, Frank Bennett, and Conrad Pope; Addt’l Music by Blake Neely and Chris P. Bacon; Recorded by Joel Iwataki & Alan Meyerson / Mixed by Alan Meyerson; Produced by James Newton Howard and Jim Weidman; Availability: In print; Label (Catalogue): Decca Records, (B000571502); Release Date: December 13, 2005

01. King Kong (1′09)
02. A Fateful Meeting (4′16)
03. Defeat Is Always Momentary (2′48)
04. It’s In the Subtext (3′19)
05. Two Grand (2′35)
06. The Venture Departs (4′03)
07. Last Blank Space On the Map (4′43)
08. It’s Deserted (7′08)
09. Something Monstrous… Neither Beast Nor Man (2′38)
10. Head Towards the Animals (2′48)
11. Beautiful (4′08)
12. Tooth and Claw (6′17)
13. That’s All There Is… (3′26)
14. Captured (2′25)
15. Central Park (4′36)
16. The Empire State Building (2′36)
17. Beauty Killed the Beast - I (1′59)
18. Beauty Killed the Beast - II (2′22)
19. Beauty Killed the Beast - III (2′14)
20. Beauty Killed the Beast - IV (4′45)
21. Beauty Killed the Beast - V (4′13)

Total Playing Time: 74′28