MERCURY RISING

JOHN BARRY

Rating:

Original Review: John Barry's latest score has been pretty much roundly slated by the majority of the respected film music critics. It's the first Barry score for a while to get such a tongue-lashing, and I have to concede that it's not one of Barry's best. The main reason for its failure is because it simply does not sound like an action score. Had it been written for a traditional family drama, or a nice little romantic flick, I feel it would have probably been better received by the press. As it stands, Mercury Rising is something of a worrying enigma. Rather than providing an earth-shattering action-driven score, Barry instead chose to focus on the pseudo father-and-son relationship between the film's two main characters: Art (Bruce Willis), a world-weary FBI agent, who finds himself looking after eight year old Simon (Miko Hughes), an autistic boy who inadvertently cracks a top secret government code, and whose parents are murdered by unscrupulous government mercenaries intent on stopping him from doing it again. The music is built around an attractive woodwind and piano melody for Simon himself, and his theme is present in the vast majority of cues, either as the centrepiece (as in 'Simon's Theme'), or as a subtle counterpoint to the action (as in 'Looking for Simon' and 'Simon on the Edge'). Barry's suspense music is very, very low key, and barely increases in volume despite the freneticism of the scenes it accompanied. The opening track, 'The Story Begins', is quite promising, and introduces some sinister rumbling timpanis and harsh piano chords, and some of the later cues, such as 'The Puzzle', 'Barrell Kills Parent' and 'The Train Search - Art & Simon', have a slightly more urgent tone. Many of the familiar Barry touches are present in the score, and once or twice the listener experiences flashbacks to other, better scores (most notably Dances With Wolves, Robin and Marian and My Life). I have to admit that, despite the predominantly negative review above, I actually quite enjoyed Mercury Rising. Fans of Barry will always enjoy scores such as this, and Simon's gentle flute theme is quite attractive in itself. However, considering the nature of Harold Becker's movie, I consider it to be something of a missed opportunity. When you think back to all the great action scores of Barry's career - the most recent being the excellent The Specialist - you realise just what kind of score Mercury Rising could have been.

Track Listing: Running Time: 34 minutes 09 seconds

Varčse Sarabande VSD-5925 (1998)

Music composed and conducted by John Barry. Recorded and mixed by John Richards. Mastered by Ramón Bretón. Album produced by John Barry.


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These web pages were designed and maintained by Jonathan Broxton copyright 1998. All opinions and views expressed on these pages are my own and are in no way intended to reflect those of my employer, the Trent Institute for Health Services Research, or those of the University of Sheffield.