[Nils Jacob Holt Hanssen]

I finally got arund to listening to the entire album, and found it quite excellent. As I’d hoped, this is Williams in much better form than the disjointed DIAL OF DESTINY. My attention didn’t wander at any point during the 64 minutes, which I think is a good litmus test for whether a score is good or not. 🙂 There are quite a few similarities with other scores, for sure, and I agree with those mentioned by Mark and others here, so no need to repeat them. But (as also mentioned by others) the references are mostly stylistic rhater than melodic, and I like those styles, so it’s not a problem. Still, there are a few sequences of notes that you’ll find in the themes of some of those other scores .

Favorite tracks (after one listen) are “celestial” (really wonderful), “listen”, “memory”, and “reprise”. Really love the ethereal/mystical/religioso parts.

As for the film itself, I haven’t seen it yet, but opinions and reviews seem to be all over the place. I see that several people here are not very impressed, but one of Norway’s largest national newspapers, for instance (Aftenposten), gave it top marks (six out of six), with the reviewer saying things like “Spielberg can still do magic”, “at times so suspenseful, I held my breath”, and “a fabulous mix of realism, delightful humour and visual storytelling”. And for a change, the score is mentioned (favorably).

The most divisive element seems to be the ending – in much the same way the ending of A.I. was divisive, as far as I can tell? I liked the ending of A.I., so my guess is I’ll like this one, too. 🙂 Here, too, Aftenposten is handing out superlatives: “fantastic”, “moving” and “pure movie magic”.