by sean on 7/24/2008
 
This edition of Indiana Jones is a collection of failures: From the abysmal creativity that George Lucas and Steven Spielberg afford the audience to the ham-fisted, uninspired script by David Koepp, there isn't a want or a care to be found in making something unique and memorable out of it all. John Williams has written a score to an uphill battle of a movie, and it's one that screams of his chief collaborator's worst product to date, Hook. Without much to sink his teeth into, Williams has made the best of it, providing a competent musical counterpart to the film's fracas of a pace and story. And it isn't without fail or surprise that his score, in the film, is given an obnoxiously low mix. This fourth installment favors loud punches and overabundant ambience that pummel the score's buoyancy; no matter, it'd take more than music alone to save Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

If score volume is the problem on screen, then on disc it's the editing and cue selection that plagues some of the album. And it's a fair assessment to say that all three previous Indiana Jones films have well-balanced releases, if incomplete, at least by boasting showcase pieces (Raiders of the Lost Ark is of course exempt, thanks to DCC). The opening and rousing action cue "Chase Through Area 51 and The Chain Fight" (our title, of course) is notably absent from the album, and worse yet the album features two of the most jarringly edited tracks in recent memory: "The Journey To Akator" and "The Jungle Chase."

The "Raiders March"-led journey music runs by perfectly and complements the on screen visuals just fine, before reaching a dumbfounding impasse: the inclusion of source music for the Latin American setting at 01:12 to the cue's finale--there's no ebb or flow from the orchestral Jones theme into the mariachi band source piece that punches into it in such a confusing manner. The inclusion is strange to say the least, and is at odds with the previous three Indiana Jones albums.

Even more problematic is the mangled editing of "The Jungle Chase," that travels through several strong iterations of "Irina's Theme" to start off the chase on disc, while on screen there is a very different beginning to "The Jungle Chase" that incorporates "Marian's Theme" into the action as she takes the wheel and a secondary theme for the Russians (heard in the release during "Finale" at 03:55-04:27 and 04:47-04:53 and during the latter-half of one of the score's finer moments: "Ants!") which later translates into what's received on album. Not only that, a robust rendition of the "Raiders March" blends into the piece during the film, yet is absent from the album. At 01:01 comes the first of several awkward musical splices that makes "The Jungle Chase" an un-listenable experience, jumping from the Irina-build material into Mutt's thematic bounce that jars the listener. With flow all but diminished at this point through uneven tempo things get more precarious: At 01:56, the music cuts in at high volume in a blast, breaking up the "Chase" at a frustrating and ridiculous keel; on screen, this encompasses the most embarrassing sequence of the film, having Shia LaBeouf's notably strong performance as Mutt, swing from one CGI vine to another with a slew of digital monkeys in tow: baffling. This isn't the end, and from 02:29 to the finish line the music at last gives way to the main crux of the on screen "Chase" music, if again hindered by inexplicable editing, it memorably carries the same martial presence that was so strong previously in pieces like "Slave Children's Crusade" and "Belly of the Steel Beast." It's a shame that such a grand finale to that could-have-been-great/should-have-been-great musical action set piece isn't given the album time to establish itself as it is during the film. The end result here is something close to the sloppiness that has bereft John Williams since he scored The Phantom Menace, where his<