Prior to his Transformers projects, Steve Jablonsky worked on quite a few works with Hans Zimmer but only with the "additional music." Now Jablonsky is flying solo. He's worked on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Steamboy and The Amittyville Horror. With The Island, we get to hear Jablonsky's abilities on action scoring.
The Island score starts off with some good guitar music accompanied by some brass roars with a male chorus every now and then intensifying every time it appears. After a minute or so the music becomes uneasy as Ewan McGregor's character has a nightmare about drowning. The theme is carried over across the album used tastefully never overwrought like, say, James Horner.
Two tracks that I did not enjoy were "Mass Vehicular Carnage" and "Blow." "Mass Vehicular Carnage" didn't sound like score material, its more of a hip-hop song because it contained lyrics. "Blow" is not found anywhere in the movie and its not even part of the score. Its probably one of those "inspired by" rock songs.
The score is good action percussion. There are some romantic moments in the album where Steve uses his guitar motif softly (e.g. This Tongue Thing is Amazing). "My Name Is Lincoln" brings all the themes of the album together very nicely with a lyricless chorus.
Michael Bay usually hires someone from the Media Ventures' gang to score his films. Steve Jablonsky met the challenge and, in my opinion, succeeded. I recommend this score if you're into the electronic Media Venture works.
My Rating 3 out of 5 stars
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