Best of 2010: Inception

Hans Zimmer does good work. Sure, at times it's a bit over the top and over powering, but he does a good job of bringing his presence to a motion picture. His Pirates of the Caribbean soundtracks were filled with powerful cues that were exciting one moment, reflective and sad another, and tender right after that, before jumping right back into the action. He keeps time with the action very well. I am posting a rather long track, but it helps to illustrate what I am talking about very well.

 The Dark Knight score (co-written by James Newton Howard) is nothing, if not  incredible. One of my favorite tracks of all time is on this soundtrack. The title is "Like A Dog Chasing Cars." The track is written with the ablsoulte chaos of the moment in mind, as it become more and more frantic, but never loses its thematic musical self. I love it and can't get enough of the power of this one scene of music.

And his theme for 2009's Sherlock Holmes is another on my list of great tracks. It captures the fun of the movie, the time frame, and excitement. It doesn't just sit there and take a breath, but dives right into the themes presented in the movie. This is the theme of a crime solver that lived a hundred years ago, and kicked ass! I mean listen to those strings. They are working overtime something fierce. And then that send off with a banjo? Brings chills.

He's also done some great work in The Lion King, Rango, The Rock, The Simpsons Movie, and The DaVinci Code, among so many others. Click here for a (much) bigger list.

Last year, Zimmer joined forces once again with Christopher Nolan to score a movie that was a great mystery to so many of us, Inception (click link for synopsis). From the first trailer, with its booming soundtrack and amazing visuals, I was sold. I couldn't wait to see this movie. Plus, it was from Nolan, so I knew that, at the very least, it would be interesting. 

Now, I never am sure just what I am going to get from Hans. Many of the scores by him I have heard and needed a couple of days of reflection before I decide on which side of the fence it falls. Some of them do leave me wondering what happened while others have me excited to hear that track or score again right after hearing it the first time. As with many other film composers, sometimes he's right on, and other times he wobbling there in the mid-range. 

Not with Inception.

Inception's score is just incredible stuff. It's just the right balance of booming excitement, sad reflections, and rushing objectives. You can feel this music moving in and out of every scene, it lives there. To listen to it alone demonstrates the power of just how powerful this music is. It is a musical firework, giving you one moment of lead up and anticipation, then explosions of sound, then bringing it down, another explosion, this time louder and stronger, and then another break, then bringing it all together for a massive explosion of enormous proportions. It is good stuff.

This is the track "The Dream is Collapsing," and it demonstrates very well what I mean. There is lead up, growing in intensity. It keeps going, inching every so close to that next moment. Again, again, and again. And then POW! It hits, strong and hard. It brings chills with it. It's powerful stuff here.

Alright, so I am maybe going a bit overboard with this. It's just music, right? Well, yes it is, but this is a score to a really great movie, and the music gives those visuals, actors, and story lines their breath. It oozes that final bit of life into the scenes, completing the circuit, if you will,  and bringing it all together. This rule can be applied again and again in different movies, ones like John Williams' Star Wars, James Horner's Willow, Jerry Goldsmith's Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Sometimes the music becomes that other element which pushes the scene from good to great. 

Of course, the Score was nominated for an Oscar this year but it lost. Now, it lost to The Social Network, which is a score that I haven't heard at this time. I hope that the SN score is a worthy opponent, something that will be remember for years to come, not just a flash in the pan. And maybe that's what will happen to Inception as well, but I would hope not.  In any case, I am sorry that this one did lose. And how luck that you can go and get this soundtrack and listen it to for yourself and hopefully be floored by its powerful message. 

The Inception score is all sorts of WOW! It is one of Hans Zimmer's best. If you get a chance to take it for a whirl, do so. Sit back and let the dreams begin.

--MGS