CD REVIEW - Night at the Museum


Night at the Museum
Music by Alan Silvestri
Varese Sarabande VSD 6778 (EU)
35 Tracks 53:35 mins

For this Ben Stiller/Robin Williams starrer about a night caretaker having to cope with the museum exhibits coming to life, Alan Silvestri has written an appropriate mix of sneaky and full-on action cues, fully symphonic, with choral embellishments, an an adventurous main theme, that is versatile enough to be played menacing or heroic and a noble and equally heroic theme for Williams' portrayal of Teddy Roosevelt, whose statue comes to life to aid the beliguered caretaker. Fans ofSilvestri's scoring of the likes of the Back to the Future trilogy and The Mummy Returns will find his music here in similar vein.
You will notice there are a large number of tracks, some of them very brief, but often one flows into another to improve the listening experience. It is regrettable however that the fragmented nature of the score makes it difficult to latch on to anything, resulting in a functional but easily forgotten accompaniment, which I am sure works much beter on film than it does here on disc. Having said this, Silvestri completists will definitely not want to be without his latest offering.