Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]

Audio Mixer: Casey Stone.
Recording information: The Newman Stage, Twentieth Century Fox Studios.
Arrangers: Douglas Romayne Stevens; Thomas Bergersen; Joseph Trapanese; Tom Bergersen.
The similarity between the Harry Potter series of fantasy novels for young adolescents and the Percy Jackson series of fantasy novels for young adolescents is reinforced by the choice of Chris Columbus, who directed the first two Harry Potter movies, to direct the first Percy Jackson movie, Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief. Columbus' choice of Christophe Beck as the film's composer also seems appropriate, since Beck cut his teeth writing music for the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer (winning an Emmy in the process) and has gone on to a series of often youth-oriented Hollywood comedies. Beck brings to bear the full resources of the A-list of Hollywood orchestral musicians here, and they play a highly conventional big orchestral score to accompany the story of a teenager contending with the gods of Mount Olympus. Beck likes to have the many horns carry his alternately heroic and wistful melodies, while the massed strings provide rhythmic underpinning. It's not hard to tell what sorts of activities the musical cues accompany, as titles like "The Fury" indicate that feats of derring-do are being enacted on the big screen while Beck's galloping music fills the theater. He reserves his big main theme, appropriately enough, for a cue called "Hollywood." Indeed, this is Hollywood 101, nothing that hasn't been heard before, just as the film is strongly suggestive of similar sorts of entertainment that have sopped up lots of money from multiplexes in recent years. But it is effectively done all the same. ~ William Ruhlmann