The Dark Knight Rises Soundtrack Review

[Tech News]

Give it up for Gotham!

Be warned … a great many BIG spoilers lurk in this comprehensive review. So read no further if you haven’t seen the film yet.

My love/hate relationship with the music of Hans Zimmer gets a massive boost in the love department with his delivery of the pulverising and euphoric score for The Dark Knight Rises. Broadening the themes and motifs that we have heard in the first two instalments in Christopher Nolan’s exemplary trilogy of Batman’s crime-fighting crusade, as imagined for current socio-political/economic/cultural climates, this becomes one of the most savage and energised scores that we’ve had in quite a while. It doesn’t deviate from the composer’s well-worn path in the slightest, but it complements the movie, its tones, its characters, its action and its sense of might, nobility and majesty. Admittedly, it doesn’t stray outside Zimmer’s...


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[MWP1985]

I'm not really a fan of Zimmer's recent work as, away from their respective films, I find them to be a joyless listen.

My personal favourite 'summer movie' score this year is definitely James Horner's for The Amazing Spider-Man. It's refreshing to hear a composer rejecting the repetitive noisemaking that plagues Zimmer's work for something so nostalgically satisfying with genuine thematic development and complex orchestrations.

That Horner even ditches a lot of his own 'Hornerisms' for the score makes it all the sweeter.

 

[Glenn01]

An epic film, an epic soundtrack ... and epic review Chris

This score is getting some serious hammer by me at the moment, I just can't get enough of it

Like you I am totally miffed at the way we have been messed around by the releasing of bonus tracks on different formats, that has been a real pain to say the least.

But once you do get hold of those pesky bonus tracks, all the hard work pays off and you get an overall album whihc is much more balanced and includes some of the major action themes of the movie ... To omit Risen From Darkness (and to a degree No Stone Unturned) from the main album release is disgusting though, particularly RFD as that is played when we are first heroicly re-introduced to the Bat at a hugely kep point in the film ... so I am still seething at that.

BUT ... all (most) is then forgiven when you play and listen to the tracks as they are belters, and need to be belted out load, jeez they are stunning pounding tracks which without the film would lose so much impact IMO - I am sure a lot of people under estimate just how much the music adds to the impact of the film and in TDKR that is emphasized even more !

A cracking album and thanks to your review a few of my questions have been answered ie some tracks are mixed up, some tracks are varants of what is used in the film and some are not even used ? So I can now stop quizzing myself

I look forward to a full comprehensive score being released in the future but in the meantime I love this.

Superb review mate

 

[bootyman81]

been blasting this all day in the van, it really gets me pumped

An excellent & thorough review, thanks