Music Composed by John Powell
Rating: *** 1/2

Better or worse, we’ve reached the point where quite a few of the major composers working in Hollywood are graduates from Hans Zimmer’s Media Ventures/Remote Control composer factory. For most of them, that background tends to be a curse, a generic mode of writing that the best learn to abandon and the worst learn to fall back on. John Powell, however, may be unique as the only Media Ventures graduate who’s actually taken the Zimmer sound and actually allowed it to develop and mature into something original. You listen to the best moments in a Powell score and you realize, not how much the Zimmer school has influenced Powell’s style, but how much Powell influenced the Zimmer school when he was still working with them. I don’t know if his work on the Bourne trilogy ranks as his absolute best, but I think it best represents his signature voice as a composer who’s genuinely evolved from the Media Ventures school. At its best, The Bourne Ultimatum represents the pinnacle of both the evolution of the Bourne franchise and the evolution of Powell’s career. Its slow-burning restraint doesn’t always make it the most exciting CD, but the intricate craft and sheer innovation driving the music make it a must for any of Powell’s followers.

John Powell

Powell started the series with heavy synthesizers, but the orchestra grew in The Bourne Supremacy, and it’s bigger still in The Bourne Ultimatum. Powell doesn’t loose the electronica element entirely, but the keyboards and drum machines just barely augment the music. The gradual focus on acoustic instruments adds immeasurably to the sense of evolution spurring the trilogy, especially as the drumbeats gradually give way to live percussion. The mixing and orchestration, however, still work to create a sound that never quite feels traditional. Like Zimmer, Powell often has his music mixed in a way that blurs distinction between individual instruments. Unlike Zimmer, however, Powell never pushes this idea so far that the music actually sounds synthetic. He’s created a new sound where the strings and brass (sans trumpets) manage to stay sharper and crisper without loosing their identity as live instruments.

This is particularly true of the album’s action behemoth, “Tangiers.” Here Powell manages to separate the strings, brass, and percussion so precisely that they almost feel like three individual instruments sparring with each other. The piece itself is the highlight of both the score and the series as a whole. It was sadly chopped up into small pieces and scattered throughout the film’s many chaotic action scenes, so thank the gods that we can hear it here in all of its fully-developed glory. With all of the thrilling syncopated rhythms, deep bass harmonies, and frenzied resurrection of motifs and ostinatos from the previous Bourne films, you really do begin to feel like the previous installments were all just building to this thrilling tour-de-force.

But that’s a mixed blessing, as “Tangiers” is only the second track of the album. The Bourne Ultimatum is thus an extremely top-heavy score. The music that follows is consistently engaging, but nothing gets the adrenaline racing like that second track. It becomes more of a suspense-driven score, serving more as an underlying pulse than a straight-out action extravaganza. “Waterloo” best exemplifies this aspect of the score, a 10-minute slow-burn that quietly races under the surface, only barely peaking it’s head up in the last thirty seconds. Though the circular “Bourne” theme probably has a stronger presence here than it’s ever had in the previous entries, the score is still light on thematic hooks that might grab the listener throughout the restrained sections. So it tends to be the sort of album that subliminally gets you nervously tapping your fingers, even if you don’t always notice what you’re listening to.

Although one element that does stand out is the heavier focus on serious drama, an element that the Bourne scores previously only hinted at. The opening “Six Weeks Ago” almost has a late-John Barry sense of somberness, while the string-heavy “Faces Without Names” brings memories of Danny Elfman’s Dolores Claiborne period of restrained agony. These moments aren’t too frequent, but they do stagger the suspense and action effectively. The score actually ends on one of these serious notes, as “Jason is Reborn” gradually builds to a heavy surge of anguished strings before gradually fading off. It’s not the most satisfying way to end a score, but Moby’s excellent new mix of “Extreme Ways” serves as the film’s musical catharsis anyway.

The Bourne films don’t offer the flashiest showcases for film music, but in his own unassuming way, Powell has actually given the films one of the most organically evolved film score trilogies in recent memory. The restrained nature of The Bourne Ultimatum may turn away listeners who want a higher surplus of action in their action scores, but the painstaking attention to the overall shape of the music and the thrillingly innovative highlights will make this a must-have for anyone who’s been following Powell’s career.

Music Composed and Produced by John Powell; Orchestrated by David Butterworth, Jake Parker, Gary K. Thomas; Conducted by Gavin Greenaway; Recorded and Mixed by Shawn Murphy; Label: Decca Records, (6-0251-74103-8-1); Availability: In-print; U.S. Release Date: July 31, 2007.

01. Six Weeks Ago (4:31)
02. Tangiers (7:40)
03. Thinking of Marie (3:51)
04. Assets and Targets (7:18)
05. Faces Without Names (3:31)
06. Waterloo (10:38)
07. Coming Home (3:19)
08. Man Versus Man (5:46)
09. Jason is Reborn (4:04)
10. Extreme Ways (Bourne’s Ultimatum) (4:22)
Performed by Moby

Total Running Time: 55:00