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[personal profile] theladyrose
There's nothing I'd like more right now than to write up an initial review of David Arnold's Casino Royale soundtrack. [livejournal.com profile] blofeldscat wrote a great review and feature about the evolution of Arnold's musical approach, so I'm afraid anything I write will. (For the record, I did get the excerpt about From Russia With Love from your book; I'm still mulling it over and am in the midst of coming up with a response.) My initial impressions of soundtracks tend to be rather cursory and misjudged; I usually dislike/feel indifferent, and then a few weeks later upon the second listening

I am so out of practice. It's pathetic — several months and the terms are starting to slip my mind.


First thought: no techno! I'll confess I used to be one of those "electronic wall of sound" critics, but I still think that the first half of the World Is Not Enough (particularly "Come in 007, Your Time Is Up") was by far the most kick ass action music Arnold ever wrote.

African Rundown: hints of "Going Down/the Bunker" from The World Is Not Enough, the drums sound a lot in line with the current Hollywood action flick trend (almost reminds me of Giacchino's work on Mission: Impossible III in parts although Arnold's sound here is much tighter and the sound mixing actually sounds natural)

Nothing Sinister: a nice little suspense cue, but nothing terribly exciting

Blunt Instrument: , the sudden expansion of the sound with the drums halfway through the cue is a nice reworking of the latter half of "Welcome to Baku" from TWINE although

CCTV: eh, anyone else thinking of Tomorrow Never Dies? The flute and harp combination with the subtle electronica and strings feels like a modern take of Barry's suspense music in Thunderbal/You Only Live Twice when Bond's sneaking around.

Trip Aces: the reliance on the flute to carry on the suspense/romantic themes gives the score a much softer sound, is a nice reference to Barry

Miami International: OK, so Arnold hasn't totally abandoned his traditional approach to scoring; thankfully, the long action cues don't sink under the lugubrious combination of slow horn and string/percussion/electronica suspense base melody

Vesper: very Barry-esque, a nice return to the lush orchestral sound and thankfully not some overwrought case of the sappy strings



Coincidentally enough, I have to put off this review (and finishing up the Elmer Bernstein concert review from two months ago) because I need to finish up my paper about consumerism and James Bond.

With luck, I'll be seeing the movie this weekend.
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June 2010

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