Album Description: Soundtrack album for the 2008 Batman movie, The Dark Knight. Music composed by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard. The Dark Knight is an American superhero film based on the DC Comics character Batman. The film is a sequel to 2005's Batman Begins, which rebooted the Batman film series after an eight-year hiatus. Actor Heath Ledger stars as The Joker.The CD contains 14 tracks of powerful punches of Batman's adventures of good vs evil.
Gripping Soundtrack Besides being elemental to the powerful impact of the film, this is a gripping soundtrack on its own. I continue to listen to it to get pumped up at the gym. Obviously I'm more in favor of the Zimmerman tracks because of their neo-industrial sound, but that's just a personal preference. It's a great sound track to a great movie and it as engaging on it's own as it is when heard in the film.
good, but under-bar for two great composers I like Hans Zimmer a lot. I have a few of his albums, listen to him quite a bit while I'm coding, and put him in my top 3 favorite composers (after Yoko Kanno certainly, and Nobuo Uematsu perhaps). I don't own any albums by James Newton-Howard, but I've enjoyed what I've heard of his music.
I remember listening to a few songs on last.fm or somesuch when the movie came out, and didn't feel particularly impressed. When I watched the movie, as I was walking out of the theater, I thought "Oh yeah, I was supposed to listen to the music.". That said, I like the composers and the movies, so I bought the album, and was, well, still unimpressed. It's good, certainly, but it could have been much better. Among Zimmer's work, I'd rate this a 3-star, but among music in general, it gets 4 stars. Perhaps not the album to get if you're looking at expanding your Zimmer collection, but still worth the $9 download.
Pure "earcandy"... I'm sure I'm not the only person who rushed out to purchase this soundtrack when it was released. I was contemplating on buying the Limited Edition or the new 2-disc release but I decided I couldn't wait that long...
Anyway. I listened to this right after listening to the Batman Begins soundtrack and I'm extremely happy to say that it was just fabulous. Zimmer and Howard are geniuses. The tracks on this disc range from pulsating-heart-pounding tones to very melancholic and even heart-breaking. Some people say they can't listen to soundtracks without the movie but I say - give this one a chance. (Beats any generic pop singers any day.)
Track #2 was quite enjoyable; it mirrors the opening of the film as they introduce Batman's mission to clean up Gotham...it also has snippets of the music from the Hong Kong scene.
#8 (Like a Dog Chasing Cars) is the highlight of this album. It gives you a sense of restlessness, action...I define it as the "Batman theme" for this movie and even though both Zimmer and Howard agreed that they tried not making any "superhero cue" for Batman, I think this track sounds pretty damn heroic.
#12 (Introduce a Little Anarchy) echoes the same tune as #6 but mixed in with some other elements.
All in all, a brilliant soundtrack. This should be in the collection of not just any Batman-fan, but also Zimmer-fans.
Fabulous The soundtrack is absolutely gorgeous! The music has a dark and commanding feel, almost like you can feel the epic battles ensuing while it plays. Like A Dog Chasing Cars is phenomenal. The rhythmic and strong pulses it gives.. beautiful. Definitely one of the best soundtracks out there! But then, how can it not be? It was mastered by the two best film composers there are.
Perfectly suited to the movie, and gets better with each listen This music is suited perfectly to the tone of the movie, and I came out of the movie thinking that the score was almost another character of the film. Visual sets and actor's performances are easy to appreciate, but without an effective score, many movies would fall flat.
What I didn't expect was how much I enjoyed each repeated listening. I enjoy good movie soundtracks, and my recent favorites include the entire "Complete Recordings" collection from the Lord of the Rings movies by Howard Shore (The Lord Of The Rings: Fellowship Of The Ring (The Complete Recordings) remains my favorite of the three). Now that I've had time to listen to this title a few times, and also those other titles, I find myself enjoying this one more and more each time.
Make no mistake, this score is as dark as the movie. You're not going to get anything light and airy here, but if you've seen the movie, you know what to expect.
My wish is that they would release this soundtrack as an alternate audio track on the DVD and Blu-ray release, as I believe that it would provide an even deeper appreciation of what Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard have accomplished here. I would easily pay the purchase price of this soundtrack again to be able to experience that!
If you enjoyed the movie, and you like music, I think you will enjoy this!
Anything Goes Trivia
Megaton Man
Trevor
