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| Listener Rating |
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| 26 listener votes for this album. |
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| A review by James Southall found on movie-wave.net |
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| By: | Angel |
| Date: | 4 Jul 2010 |
| Rating: |
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Mercury Rising shows just what he can offer - and also why nobody is interested in what he can offer. In the inglorious final years of his career, this score must have been one of the sorriest episodes - not because the music is poor (though it certainly isn't one of Barry's stronger efforts) - but because, for the umpteenth time, he couldn't agree with the director on a musical approach and so much of his score ended up being removed from the movie and replaced with a last-minute rush job from Carter Burwell.
The fact is though that however fashionable it may be to disagree, Barry's approach to this type of film is probably spot-on. He doesn't even bother trying to score many of the action scenes - and, really, there isn't much of a point. With all the helicopters, guns, cars etc, no music is ever going to be heard in the movie. He concentrates instead on the central character, an autistic boy being hunted by terrorists who want him to crack the government's ultra-secret new code (honestly, I'm not making this up), giving him a theme that is touching and tinged with an air of tragedy, quite sublimely beautiful despite being very simplistic. Unfortunately Barry does very little with the theme through the score, just stating it virtually in full without much variation every other track or so.
The rest of the score is mostly tense material, at which Barry has always excelled, though there is some genuine action music thrown into the mixing pot as well. "The Story Begins" opens the album with a menacing piece, clearly foreshadowing darkness to come. "The Train Search" is probably the standout piece of suspense music, with Barry adding layer upon layer of growling, dark material, using all the tricks up his sleeve to great effect. That track segues into the mean, moody "Art and Simon", featuring a lovely sax solo counterplayed by a wafer-thin flute theme. "Rooftop Arrival" is a pacy and punchy track that recalls some of Barry's latter-day James Bond music, though it isn't quite so dynamic. "Simon on the Edge" is the standout action piece featuring some effective brass effects which were something new for the composer, and making for a brilliant musical representation of desperation, the feeling of having nowhere to turn. It might be a bit on the slow side and there might be no Yamaha in sight, but it's better than 99% of action music being written today by even the most prolific and highly-regarded film composers. The end title cue, "The Story Ends", is probably the best on the album: opening with a brand new theme, a playful little melody, on strings, it segues into the main theme before going back to the new theme again, this time being heard on sax. It's a terrific ending to the album.
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