Lady in the Water

Bob Dylan

For his fifth collaboration--and following the Oscar-nominated score for The Village--with director M. Night Shyamalan, James Newton Howard has delivered rather good work. Considering the supernatural tone of the movie, some of the composer's touches are predictable (a glockenspiel offering eerie punctuations, a huge choir suggestively going "oooh" and "aaah"), but he also demonstrates a sure sense of melody. Listen, for instance, to the various threads making up "Prologue." Despite the size of the orchestra at his disposal, Newton Howard always opts for subtle touches rather than wham-bam scary-movie effects. The most stereotypically actiony cue is "The Great Eatlon," but it's done as well as can be: it remains ominously restrained for quite a while, until the choir comes in to deliver an elegiac passage and the track switches to grandiose pomp. Tacked at the end of the CD are four Bob Dylan covers, including a gothic take on "The Times They Are A-Changin'" by A Whisper in the Noise, and Silvertide's rocking "It Ain't Me Babe" and "Maggie's Farm." --Elisabeth Vincentelli

Lady in the Water Album: