Annapolis

Annapolis is about the famous American Naval Academy, evidently full of posh types who like nothing better than wearing white and being jolly macho indeed. Naturally, nobody likes too many posh types so the film centres on a recruit from the wrong side of the tracks who has to prove himself. Sounds awful and, based on the reviews I've read, probably is. The first thing I thought when Brian Tyler rose his baton on the nominal opening track was 'maybe Randy Edelman was busy' which pretty much tells you all you need to know about the melodic material. Vaguely noble, a bit thick on the orchestration - although none of that unnecessary synth padding Edelman uses to curdle the orchestral textures - but on the cusp of forgettable. It's amazing how difficult it is to write something slow and stirring which is also memorable. It's like composing a rousing hymn tune but, in this case, not one you'll come away from church humming.

In fact, sounding vaguely like something else plagues much of Annapolis and what makes it even more frustrating is that Tyler's usually detailed writing is smoothed out into rich brass and string chords. Sometimes the effect is a bit Trevor Rabin, sometimes a little James Horner - notably the out of tune bell glissandi that crop up frequently in Horner's writing that I don't recall ever having heard anywhere else. Of course, there's some more urgent material, Showdown a fine, early example with some more than passable brass writing, although still without a lot of the grit we've come to expect from Tyler. Synth percussion and rock influences appear with increasing frequency in the middle of the album, usually just underpinning the orchestra, but occasionally taking a more central role such as in Progression and Run In Place. This all works well enough and has the saving grace of being fairly well written and infrequent enough to avoid being the score's major musical tone.

One of the harsher critiques of the film at the Internet Movie Database found it 'bland and forgettable' and it's tempting to say the same thing about Tyler's score. It's not so much that the music is especially bad (although it's far from Tyler's most technically accomplished work) but just that it doesn't really distinguish itself. Like them or not, Randy Edelman and Trevor Rabin both have surprisingly distinct voices, Tyler's isn't quite so readily distinguishable and here is filtered through the mannerisms of too many others. At an hour, Annapolis is a bit long for the material, but the tracks are generally rather short so there isn't too much aimless wandering and enough good tracks in amongst the mediocre to keep the momentum going. Listenable, but not great, just average, verging on slightly disappointing.