Turbulence 2: Fear of Flying

Turbulence is not a film I've seen, but when you can't recall reading one review that didn't say it was terrible, then chances are you're not missing much. About the only positive comments were regarding Shirley Walker's score which I don't believe has received a legitimate release. So, here we have a sequel for a film that was originally itself dreadful. It is with some surprise that I find Don Davis' name attached to it given his much higher recent profile, but evidently previous collaborations with director David MacKay led Davis to scoring Turbulence 2 for him.

Despite his huge promise Don Davis was apparently not very inspired by Turbulence 2 and as such his score is a disappointing, uninspiring and uninteresting. It is entirely synthesised, but the samples are so good that the first time I started listening to it I didn't realise it wasn't orchesrtal. It's certainly not dogged by cheesy synth effects and would probably not be any more interesting had it actually been performed by a full orchestra. It starts with reasonable promise, the Main Title being an exciting, if not totally memorable action theme. After that it moves from uninteresting action music, but mainly even less interesting suspense music. Almost none of the tracks stand out from the rest, there are a few token romantic moments that break up the monotony, but have almost no impact and perhaps the only sections where the lack of an acoustic performance spoils the music.

I would like to suggest that this will almost certainly be a one off blip in Davis' otherwise stellar rise. I don't blame him for turning in something less than inspired given the source material. The liner notes feature a passage from MacKay who appears to have taken a course in 'How to praise the composer' taught by Steven Spielberg with much huge praise Don Davis. Well deserved for all the other scores by Davis I've heard, but unfortunately not Turbulence 2. If Jerry Goldsmith can write something half decent for Executive Decision and then a couple of years later write a terrific score for Air Force One in a week (albeit with a little help), it makes one realise why Jerry is such a terrific composer and titan of film music. Don Davis probably won't quite reach those heights, but fewer efforts like this and more like The Matrix will probably assure his place amongst the brightest of today's composers. Looks like I picked the wrong week to give up glue sniffing.