Soundtrack Review: X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)
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This is a review of the motion picture score X-Men Origins: Wolverine by Harry Gregson-Williams.
“I hate the bland feeling of nothingness that this score gives me and it’s a disappointing score to a great character.”
There have been a lot of people waiting for this one, including me. I was looking forward to it for three reasons. One, its X-Men. Two it’s Wolverine. Three, its Harry Gregson-Williams. With all that combined I knew it had to be something special. Harry Gregson-Williams isn’t the most prolific of composers out there, but he usually delivers one or two great scores each year. Then why do I feel all empty inside…?
Track List
- Logan Through Time (****)
- Special Privileges (***)
- Lagos, Nigeria (***)
- Wade Goes To Work (****)
- Kayla (*****)
- Victor Visits (***)
- Adamantium (***)
- Agent Zero Comes For Logan (***)
- Logan Meets Gambit (***)
- To The Island (***)
- Deadpool (***)
- The Towers Collapse (***)
- Memories Lost (***)
- I’ll Find My Own Way (***)
Bland
The soundtrack is a bit short and only lasts for 45 minutes. Neither the movie nor score has gotten many favorable reviews by critics. I just have to be upfront with you all. I am a fan of Harry Gregson-Williams style and music so naturally I was overjoyed when he was assigned this score. The style he has chosen for X-Men Origins: Wolverine is a rather bland one. Let me explain. Yes, the cues are strong and they make a great background listen, but very few of them actually say anything or make you feel anything. Examples of this are cues like ‘Special Priveleges’ and ‘Lagos, Nigeria’. It all blends in quite nicely and I don’t know quite what to feel. It goes on and on with ‘Victor Visits’, ‘Adamantium‘ and others. Granted, some of them have parts that can be separated like the action parts of ‘Victor Visits’. I feel on a personal level that a character such as Wolverine, which is my favorite character from X-Men, needs a much stronger identity than Harry Gregson-Williams has given him.
Main Theme
Wolverine has gotten a theme though in ‘Logan Through Time’, and it’s a nice one, just not a very great one. It has a simple constructed theme, but it’s mixed with the feeling of no importance. The highlights in the cue are the female choir, other than that it’s an easily forgotten main theme. I don’t want to repeat myself, but Wolverine deserves better, a lot better. There has been talk about the electronica group Hybrid joining Harry Gregson-Williams on the Wolverine score, but there’s very little evidence of that. There’s one cue called ‘Wade Goes to Work’ which at the end sounds something Hybrid would come up with. I’m a big fan of Hybrid too by the way. Other than this cue, I can’t feel their involvement.
Kayla & Deadpool
The best cue on the X-Men Origins Wolverine score is ‘Kayla‘ which is the theme of Kayla Silverfox. It’s an easy pick as the best cue because it has the element of a true theme and it has lots of emotions. The piano works well with Gregson-Williams subtle underscoring. More of this Mr. Williams! Sadly there isn’t. There’s a cue called ‘Deadpool‘ which should have been great, but isn’t. Deadpool is a character that deserves a proper theme like for example Nero got in Star Trek by Michael Giacchino. There’s just nothing there unfortunately and that is a huge letdown for me.
Conclusion
I guess, if you read my review, you already know my conclusions. I hate the bland feeling of nothingness that this score gives me and it’s a disappointing score to a great character. There’s so much potential here. You have Wolverine, Deadpool, X-Men and you have Harry Gregson-Williams and Hybrid. I can’t understand why it failed the way it did, it’s incomprehensible, but it happened. It’s very unfortunate, but I just can’t be excited about this at all. I am left with a feeling of “oh ok, and then what?” Move on, nothing to see here…
Listen to X-Men Origins: Wolverine by Harry Gregson-Williams below:
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Film Review for X-Men Origins: Wolverine
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Comments
I agree SO MUCH. I too, am a huge fan of Gregson-Williams’ work and this score was just disappointing.
One song that should have been on there is indistructible by disurbed. it kinda matches everything in the movie when he became the wolverine. This movie is amazing and yeh the songs are so awesome
hi guys, i’m a film student and i need to right a topic aobut music in film, actually the topic is about comparing the music used in two different films. i have chosen Xmen1 and Wolverine to compare. only some parts of both films.
here is waht need to be considered:
How do the technologies relate to both the versions in terms of date of release, medium produced for and the target audience? If these are substantially different, why is this the case? How do these technologies affect the characteristics of the final products?
Which sound effects hold significant importance to both of the versions? What do you think are the original sound sources of some of these sound effects? What processing is used produce the final sound effects from these original recordings? If the sound effects are important on a cross-platform of mediums, how do the applications or sources of these effects differ? What affect does the utilisation of these effects have on the final products?
i will be very apreciated if anyone could help me ASAP
thanx
Soundtrack Seek
I wrote my own review right before you posted this and our sentiments are the same. I view Wolverine as this summer’s version of Iron Man because both can pass by without much complaint but are too derivative (and in this case miss way too many opportunities) to merit a recommendation.
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Jorn Tillnes Reply:
May 26th, 2009 at 5:06 am
Good comparison with Iron Man. Both had big expectations and both failed to deliver.
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