Search - Harald Kloser :: Day After Tomorrow (Score)

Great Theme in a Perfunctory Score!

Zachary S. Houp | Fleetwood, PA USA | 08/16/2006

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Clearly, The Day After Tomorrow falls under the category of a disaster film. More than any genre (except, perhaps, the small-minded date movie) these films use stock characters, stock situations, and stock dialogue. What a person can learn from Harold Kloser's score is that there is also a stock film score. There is nothing inherently bad about any of the music to be found on this CD; in fact, the music is altogether painfully adequate. And by adequate, I am also implying that it is forgettable. There are no epiphanic moments of musical splendor. There are merely the stereotypical sound bites that might have been sampled from any number of disaster films ever made.



The glowing exception is the main theme, which is beautiful but, nevertheless, cannot raise the music out of mediocrity. The theme is beautiful and simple and so exceedingly optimistic that I can think of no other film to use it in. I can, perhaps, imagine it playing during a rousing political speech by a charismatic leader. This is both a blessing and a curse. While the theme is more than listenable and certainly appropriate, it is also fairly perfunctory. It is no different from the beautiful theme that blossoms at the end of every second act of every disaster film ever made. I called the theme optimistic, and this is true--it is optimistic to a fault. It somehow manages to breed the sanguinity of a struggling mankind while purging itself of all genuine emotion and feeling. Inevitably, it does not come across as optimism but as the artifice of optimism.



Yet, the score is still worthwhile. It is not groundbreaking, it is not memorable, and it is not moving. But, then again, it has no aspirations to be. The score is as stock as every other component of a disaster film, and so it achieves its ultimate design. I own the score, and I will often turn to its main theme, but the remainder has been done better in better films by better composers than Harold Kloser.

"

Excellent Soundtrack

Mary the Horn Player | Mississippi, USA | 01/09/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I went to see the movie the when it first came out to the theaters. When the movie came on, the first thing I noticed was the soundtrack. The main theme came in the very beginning of the movie and it touched me immediately. I'm a french horn player and I love how they have a lot of horn features in the sountrack. I'm not too crazy on the "rough songs" like tidal wave and blizzard, but the president's speech and main theme touched me. It fit the movie perfectly. The music itself puts you in a sense of aw so you can relate to the powerful message of the movie. Over-in-all, it's a beautiful soundtrack and everyone should buy it or atleast buy the movie and listen to it!"