Blade II

Marco Beltrami made it big scoring horror films; Mimic and the even more successful Scream films, but seems to have got stuck in a rut scoring progressively worse variations on the genre. Maybe he enjoys scoring them, but I would think that the challenge starts to dissipate after a while and certainly narrows the directors likely to employ his services. The original Blade was scored by Mark Isham whose music was all modern and cool in the film, but not to my liking at all on its own. Beltrami's recent efforts haven't exactly been great, but Blade II is something of an improvement if not an inspired revelation. I suppose Blade isn't really horror, more vampire coupled with elements of superhero, which is likely why this is somewhat more interesting than his recent scores.
The result is that Beltrami is able to steer away from over extended suspense writing which has often bogged down his recent efforts and produce some really rather good action music. Suckheads Infiltrate is where the score really starts cooking with yet another variant on the Crouching Tiger percussion, albeit more subtly incorporated. Beltrami's orchestration is surprisingly sparse, this is not dense orchestra and electronics, but just the right amount of both. About the only time when the orchestration gets more intense are when he employs the kind of howling brass that Elliot Goldenthal is so fond of, indeed a couple of moments could easily be from Alien 3.

The quieter moments manage to retain just enough interest to avoid being the generic slow moments, although these are still somewhat lacking anything that could be described as memorable. It's still a hard score to recommend though. The more prominent orchestral component is pleasing and the action cues are exciting if only modestly original in conception. Being stuck somewhere between genres, the film is perhaps difficult to define musically. A great theme for Blade himself certainly wouldn't have gone amiss, but presumably the feeling was that his character isn't enough of a hero to warrant such a theme. Either way, it's a competent score and an enjoyable listen, the only real problem being that it doesn't really stand out and given the choice between this and something similar by Danny Elfman, Elliot Goldenthal, Christopher Young - all of whom could claim stylistic influences - I know what I'd choose.