Deep Rising is a Stephen Sommers (The Mummy) sci-fi monster movie about some sort of giant killer octopus holding a cruise liner hostage on the open sea. None of it is particularly logical or can be taken seriously, and whether you'll like the movie may well depend on the frame of mind you're in while watching it. I kinda like it, it's straight B-movie trash for sure, but entertaining nevertheless, since nobody, including Goldsmith or Sommers, seem to take any of it seriously either. Of course, as a movie, it is certainly nowhere near in the league of Alien or The Thing.
Yet no doubt, for me (and I said the same thing years ago on the Film Score Monthly Message board when the movie came out) this is one of Jerry Goldsmith's most thrilling scores ever. It is basically over the top non-stop aggressive action music (with a few tense suspense cues for good measure thrown in) In fact, I find the action music to be among Goldsmith's most compelling, easily as listanable (if not more so) than much of the stuff he wrote for way better known scores such as Total Recall. It's not just exciting, it's just so darn relentless, that quite often when you think it's the climax of a cue, Goldsmith still somehow manages to turn it up a notch. Goldsmith has always been very good at writing exciting action music, so it's a blast to hear that album, which is basically just one non-stop action ballet, a kind of pop version of Stravinsky's Le Sacre; one half hour of rollicking, aggessively pounding rhythms.
Interestingly, I remember a renowned German classical music magazine giving the CD release a good review, stating that Goldsmith did a lot of stuff you otherwise only hear in the most avant-garde concert works. Definitely one of the Goldsmith scores I listen to more often; though it's probably best if you don't listen to it at night, otherwise your neighbors will knock at you door (and it's no fun listening to it with the volume turned down).
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