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PLANET OF THE APES

For PLANET OF THE APES, composer Danny Elfman wasn't up against the watered-down Goldsmith of the '90s, but the full-blooded sound of Goldsmith in his prime, circa 1968. Franklin Schaffner's original PLANET OF THE APES features a Goldsmith score that is quite arguably the best and most distinctive thing he ever wrote, a masterpiece of primal fury and alien soundscapes, remarkably all created with acoustic instruments. Its style has been copied and referenced in dozens of film scores over the years, but it has rarely been equaled even by Goldsmith himself.

It's fair to say that Danny Elfman certainly doesn't equal the original APES score here, but then Elfman himself has noted that in this case there was no point in even trying. As Elfman has admitted, it was far easier and more appropriate for Goldsmith to write a challenging, remarkably complex and sophisticated avant-garde score for PLANET OF THE APES thirty years ago than it would have been for Elfman to do the same thing today. While the original PLANET OF THE APES was a pointed social and political allegory, Burton's film is little more than a standard contemporary action movie in an ape's new suit. It's standard hero vs. villain stuff of the sort that would have been appropriate only to Saturday morning cartoons in the 1960swhile the original film was a document of its era, the current remake is more of a marker of how far we've fallen since the Sixties in terms of film and audience sophistication.

All that being said, Elfman's APES score manages to pay textural obeisance to Goldsmith's original while being distinctly Elfmanesque, opening with a quirky and aggressive orchestral ape waltz marked with stylish synthesized percussion effects. Elfman's score is more traditionally orchestral than Goldsmith's, without the older composer's gritty, snarling brass playing or unnerving percussionit's toned down, but it's also a return to Elfman's original comic-book-style adventure writing. Elfman has gotten more textural and atmospheric than theme-driven recently, with a score like SLEEPY HOLLOW barely registering a main theme. PLANET OF THE APES conjures pleasant memories of Elfman's earlier work on BATMAN and NIGHTBREED, although the action passages never reach the heights of the composer's best adventure work like BATMAN and MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE.

Elfman also can't compete with the manic ferocity of Goldsmith's originaleven though he's working with a much larger orchestra than Goldsmith did, the sound of Elfman's APES is diminished when compared to the action set pieces from the original. Elfman actually does his best work in the score's quieter passages, particularly in some classically sophisticated dramatic writing in the score's final cue. That seems to be where the composer's head is these days, and while APES is reminiscent of his earlier, frenetic action scores, it would seem Elfman has evolved beyond that stage. Too bad today's movies can't take a lesson from him.