Soundtrack Review: Wanted (2008)

Posted by Jorn Tillnes

July 28, 2008

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071008-0335-soundtrackr1 Soundtrack Review: Wanted (2008) This is a review of the motion picture score for Wanted by Danny Elfman.

“The most interesting track is the first one as Danny Elfman sings and dances, well at least singing”

This movie looks a lot of fun and I’ve read some very good reviews. I was wondering whether we would get The Kingdom Elfman or just plain Elfman. This sort of movie is not one I would associate with Danny Elfman usually, but he seems to do more “mainstream” movies now which are interesting. This Action movie directed by Timur Bekmambetov and starring James McAvoy, Morgan Freeman and Angelina Jolie is about a young man who finds out that his father is an assassin and when his father gets murdered he gets recruited into his father’s old organization. Sounds good? It does to me. This is the track list to Wanted:

Track List

The Little Things
Success Montage
Fraternity Suite
Wesley’s Office Life
The Scheme
Fox In Control
Welcome To The Fraternity
Fox’s Story
Exterminator Beat
Rats
The Train
Revenge
Fox’s Decision
Breaking The Code
Fate

Quite Average

This score is quite average in size, 15 tracks and 48 minutes of play time. The most interesting track is the first one as Danny Elfman sings and dances, well at least singing. It sounds like an old fashioned rock tune and it’s interesting because we don’t hear Danny Elfman sing much these days. He used to be in the classic 80s band Oingo Boingo, so that’s probably where he drew inspiration from. Going from there it starts off quite well with “Success Montage”, which defines the movie by using a catchy theme. The only thing is that it’s using all the wrong instruments. I see what Danny Elfman is trying to do here, he is trying to be modern, yet he uses “old” instruments. I can just imagine how much better this track would be with Trevor Rabin or Hans Zimmer doing it. It’s a bit strange, because Danny Elfman used a lot of modern instruments in “The Kingdom”. Maybe he has lost the plot a little. There’s nothing really new here on this score, it’s a mix of the new and the old Elfman and I do expect better than that. A bit of a disappointment really, but I still think the movie won’t be as “standard” as this score. Listen to Wanted by Danny Elfman below: