Soundtrack Snippets

David Newman has returned in a glorious comeback!
The film Tarzan, boasted of a better remake in 3D and more realistic animation as opposed to Disney's 1999 version. Surprisingly enough, the filmmakers went with veteran composer, David Newman who already has had experience working in children's animated movies (Ice Age, The Brave Little Toaster, and Anastasia for example).
Newman, son of the golden age film composer, Alfred Newman, has a way with touching your heart through the scores listed above and creating a simplistic but heartwarming score. It had been several years since Newman has had any films to score and his return is a welcome one indeed!
The general mass of the score is action cues especially near the end. The main theme a simple but soaring brass statement backed up by warm strings and doesn't reappear in the score much but when it does; it's in all of it's brassy glory.  Newman also rely's somewhat, on some synth here and there but doesn't detract much from the quality of the score (Heard in the cue, Kayla and Kerchak, for example).

Choir is also a prevalent factor throughout the score reminiscent of his score Anastasia. The wordless vocals seem to add wonder and beauty to Tarzan's world in a musical sense.
Being a story which takes place in the jungle, Newman also utilizes a mix of percussion with Taiko drums, bongo's, among others thus creating a classic "adventurous jungle atmosphere".
Some of the dramatic material surfaces in the cue,  Tarzan Helps Jane, with stirring strings and a tender ethereal piano solo. The melody is quite evocative and gorgeous.
The later half of the score is filled to the brim with action material with brass themes ranging from heroic to bombastic and even to epic stopping once or twice to take a break. One of the cues, Tarzan and Jane at the Lake, is reminiscent of some of the dramatic material from his score for Ice Age. It's got a simple string melody backed by woodwinds and eventually joined by an acoustic guitar.

Overall this score makes for a really solid action score and starting this year off with a bang. Boy, is it good to have David Newman back!

Rating: ****1/2

Best Cues:

• Not able to decide on one single cue. Each cue is awesome but the experience is best heard with the cues all together. Yeah, it's that good.