The remake of Clash Of The Titans made news headlines for several reasons. The big one was that Warner Brothers decided to revamp the film in 3D at the last second just to get the inflated ticket pricing despite the fact that 3D was never ever planned for it in any creative sense. The second headliner was that Craig Armstrong’s score was rejected and he was replaced by Ramin Djawadi.
A lot of people were disappointed by this, but the fact is that score rejection is becoming a huge thing. After The Wolfman fiasco and recently Atli Örvarsson being kicked off The Karate Kid we’re seeing that score rejection is becoming more common.
From the time Ramin Djawadi was hired till the first dub he had 3 weeks to compose the score. So of course in the Hans Zimmer tradition of collaboration he had a few of his friends and collaborators help out. Neil Davidge, Geoff Zanelli, Dominic Lewis, Noah Sorota and Bobby Tahouri came on board to help with the insurmountable task of composing a feature score to a massive action film in only 3 weeks.
I fell in love with the score. It has the sound I love, sweeping ascending cues that carry you, a grounding and emotional main theme. All in all it is a great score. Is it anything new? Absolutely not. You can hear the Zimmer influence throughout it. At times I heard a touch of Pirates Of The Caribbean and some King Arthur style cues. However, It carries Ramin’s sound that you heard in Iron Man but without the “rock n’ roll” mentality. People wonder if he paid any homage to Laurence Rosenthal’s score to the original, which he didn’t. I see it as a good thing. I don’t know why people want composers to reference the original scores for remakes. I love it when we get an original voice.
So, if you want a good old fashion Zimmeresque action score then here it is. Enjoy it because it’s tons of fun. The only drawback is the inclusion of Niel Davidge’s full on 10-minute grunge rock cue. It sticks out like a sore thumb and I would have much rather gotten some more story propelled score. I’m not complaining though because the album is packed as it is. Also, just an interesting side note. At the very end of the credits of the film they credit “Io’s Theme” by Craig Armstrong. So it looks like just a snippet of his score survived the final cut.
Finally! Someone who agrees with me on this being a great score! There seems to be too many "Remote Control Productions" haters who seem to bash on any Zimmeresque music. I love the Remote Control sound, and this score very much fits in that alley. Quite enjoyable listening experience. (Except for "Be My Weapon," which could have been cut down to 1-2 minutes long)
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