John Williams – “The Adventures of Tintin”

Album Reviews | Dec 7th, 2011

Record Label: Sony Masterworks
Genre: Film Score
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Like I said in the War Horse review, John Williams hasn’t done any new film scores since 2008 with the last Indiana Jones movie. He’s back in full force this year with two scores, “The Adventures of Tin Tin” and “War Horse.” “The Adventures of Tin Tin” is a different type of score than “War Horse.” The score for “War Horse” can be listened without seeing the movie first and is a bit dramatic. “The Adventures of Tin Tin” isn’t that type of score and needs to be seen to appreciate the music.

This score has more of a cartoony/action feel to it since it’s a 3D, motion capture CGI adventure movie. “The Adventures of Tin Tin” theme song is a bit of a jazzy number, which reminds me a bit of Catch Me If You Can’s theme. After that track, the score goes back to less jazzy stuff like “Snowy’s Theme” and “The Secret of the Scrolls.”

The little motifs that I’m hearing throughout the score also reminds me of the Harry Potter music, or even music from Temple of Doom. The beginning starts out sort of dark, mysterious type of music. But the album changes directions and has a lot of action cues like “Sir Francis And The Unicorn” and “The Pursuit of the Falcon” Some tracks have some accordions playing in it as well, which I liked and wish I heard more. “Presenting Bianca Castafiore” is an opera track which was a nice surprise to hear. I guess that’s in the movie?

The score is more action cue heavy than “War Horse,” which is fine but kind of hard to tell what’s going if you haven’t seen the movie yet. I think I’ll appreciate this John Williams score once I see the movie.

Bottom Line: Action cue oriented score from John Williams
Notable Tracks: Snowy’s Theme, Introducing The Thompsons And Snowy’s Chase, Presenting Bianca Castafiore
Overall Rating:

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