Back Lot Music, out now

Robert Zemeckis’ tale of a man’s retreat to a fantasy world to escape the vicious thugs who attacked him is scored (of course) by his composer-of-choice Alan Silvestri. It’s a relationship that they’ve enjoyed since 1984’s Romancing the Stone and one that is truly symbiotic.

In the 59 minutes of score on Back Lot Music’s digital-only release we find two very different approaches from the composer. On the one hand there’s the pastoral, bittersweet life music that follows Steve Carrell’s Mark Hogancamp around, and then there’s the timpani-heavy militaristic anthems used to underscore the World War II exploits in the imaginary toy village. Silvestri is no stranger to either genre, his Forrest Gump sitting at one end of the scale and Captain America at the other extreme. The skill comes from his blending such opposite sounds, and as fantasy and reality inevitably become one, he finds that perfectly-balanced middle ground between the two.

The action cues are joyous, and they’re deliberately over the top because the world they’re supporting is equally stylised. Mark has based this world on his Hollywood view of WWII, and it follows that the OTT score echoes Ron Goodwin’s Where Eagles Dare, Elmer Bernstein’s The Great Escape and other war movie standards. The lighter music has a gentler lullaby-like sound, most notable in Goodnight Girls and riffing off an Edward Scissorhands fairy tale vibe. Skip to the seven-minute End Credits to experience the full range of this score – there’s a lot more here than you might first imagine – and I for one will never tire of the big Judge Dredd and Back to the Future sound that periodically propels this forwards.

Verdict: It’s two soundtracks for the price of one in Alan Silvestri’s latest Zemeckis project. It’s always a pleasure to see the director’s latest work and equally comforting knowing that his composer will have his back. Lullabies and snare drums in the same mix might sound like a bad idea, but not in the hands of these two. 9/10

Nick Joy

Read our review of Welcome to Marwen here