User Average Rating:

 4 Stars

Review Average Rating:

 3.07 Stars

"As an album, the score makes an enjoyable listen, but it is no where near as fun as Danny Elfman's score for Batman '89. But this album's strength doesn't rely on fun factor or the amount of action material, instead it relies on the psychological aspects of the story and, being a Batman fan ever since I was seven, I absolutely love that about this score. More important than the album, the score works marvelously within the context of the movie."

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"Buy it... if you enjoyed the simplistic, rhythmic propulsion of deep strings (real and synthesized) heard throughout the film."

"Avoid it... if you expect a truly Gothic sound for Gotham, a complex variation of theme for Wayne's duality, or any of the heroic structure of Danny Elfman's classic original."

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"I expect purists to be dismayed, but we have to remember that this is Batman for the new millennium, a world away from the excesses of the 80s and 90s, intended to speak to a whole new cinematic audience, many of whom weren’t even born when Michael Keaton first stepped into the bat suit. From this reviewer’s point of view, it gets a tentative recommendation. Howard has always been a favourite of mine, but this score also highlights just how good Zimmer can be when he relies on his own compositional experience rather than that of his underlings."

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"This is a very different beast to Danny Elfman’s compositions, with the composers avoiding a grandstanding hero theme to surge in and out when Batman appears or departs. This is more of a mood piece, underscoring the tone of the movie. There is little time when the screen is silent, the soundtrack being ever present in the movie’s soundscape. Throbbing and brutal, the dynamic duo of Zimmer and Newton Howard have delivered a wonderful collaborative dark brooding symphony for the bat."

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"It appears that Howard got the dramatic portions and Zimmer ramps up his keyboard for the action. The former sections are occasionally engaging, notably a fine, melancholy string melody, while the latter are slightly more interesting than much of Zimmer's recent action music, although this is rather relative. Unfortunately, between these modestly interesting passages, there are too many slack periods; gloomy, sustained notes that don't go anywhere and general non-musical ambiance gets dull, quickly."

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" There is no sense of this being a coherent film score, nowhere near enough interesting melodic material, and when the music does become more interesting (there are some genuinely impressive dissonant textures from time to time, and when the composers do make a brief focus on definable melody, it works very well) it never stays that way for too long. The score sounds like Bruckheimer's Batman with the frequent insertion of music which is stylistically diametrically opposed, with the two styles cancelling each other out and making an album that just doesn't work in any shape or form. What a disappointment."

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"Perhaps perfectly capturing the dark edges of Christopher Nolan's Batman vision, Zimmer and Howard's super-serious score can't be considered anything other than a missed opportunity on album, where it plays soft and stoic, only bursting into full-blown action-anthem mode precious few times."

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