Deep Rising

You really have to wander what attracts composers of Jerry Goldsmith's calibre to a film like Deep Rising, I guess it must be the money, plus the thought that director Stephen Sommers might go onto greater things (maybe). Well, he did with The Mummy, although, a trifle infamously, it was during the writing of that score when Goldsmith decided to eschew writing for such trashy films. The ironic thing is, The Mummy is one of Goldsmith's most enjoyable scores for years and the film is probably the best of Sommers' output so far (not a great achievement, but good entertainment all the same). Anyway, Deep Rising is another Alien style monster on the loose movie, but starting under the premise that a group of mercenaries are there to steal jewels from a cruise ship on its maiden voyage. Needless to say, it's not the kind of film that requires any great art in its scoring, but Goldsmith's score hits most of the requisite thrill buttons.
Maybe it's just the production of the soundtrack album, but Deep Rising doesn't seem to suffer the same sort of lapse into tedious suspense that many horror scores do. Of course, Goldsmith is a much above average film composer, but even so, Deep Rising is the kind of film where even a good composer would be hard pushed to fill in the minutes between action. Fortunately, the score focuses on the more exciting passages and even though it's not great art, there's rarely a dull moment. Underwater Grave introduces Goldsmith's somewhat uninspiring title theme, although the unusually active synthetic percussion drives it along to make it seem a lot more exciting than it really is. Lost Communication sets the pattern for the rest of the score, with tense strings for the suspense and brass combined with real and synthetic percussion for the action. By Goldsmith's standards, it's pretty simplistic in its construction, but its relatively clean orchestration is a relief after so many dense, over-orchestrated action scores from younger composers who are far too keen to make things as complex as possible.

There is one break from the silliness and that's the quite lovely, oboe led melody of Leila's Gone, even if it is rudely interrupted by a percussion battering. A fairly average Goldsmith action score, which looks forward to Star Trek: Nemesis, but is a much more consistently entertaining listen, even if it contains fewer high spots than his score for the crew of the Enterprise. The opening theme returns for Hang On and there isn't really much in the way of a closure, a score that is just thundering action episodes, punctuated by couple of suspenseful ones. I suppose I should be more critical of such an undemanding score, but Deep Rising is worth recommending for its entertainment value, which rarely slips and is certainly a lot more exciting than the film itself. The old adage about Goldsmith providing surprisingly decent to a dreadful film once again applies, even if in this case, it's far from his best, but even so, rollocking entertainment.