Soundtrack Review: Unstoppable (2010)

Unstoppable Soundtrack Review: This is a review of the motion picture score Unstoppable by Harry Gregson-Williams

"What you will get with Unstoppable is Harry's well known electronic percussion style"

Tony Scott, Denzel Washington and Harry Gregson-Williams are at it again with their latest title Unstoppable. This time Denzel is trying to stop a runaway train carrying a cargo of toxic chemicals. If they can't stop the train in time, the consequences will be disastrous. Nothing new here, but I do look forward to the Harry Gregson-Williams score and hoping it will bring me something new like Spy Game, Man On Fire and Deja vu was at the time. What will the Unstoppable soundtrack bring? Let's find out.

Track List

Harry Gregson-Williams is back with another Tony Scott/Denzel Washington collaboration and it clearly shows. As soon as you put the CD in, you will recognize the familiar sound. I can already say that if you don't like that sound, you will not appreciate this, but if you are ready for more, then this score will have you turning up the volume.

Harry's Game

What you will get with Unstoppable is Harry's well known electronic percussion style used in The Taking Of Pelham 1 2 3 and Spy Game, but the truth is that it is not much new material. The theme heard in cues like 'Stanton, PA' and 'Who Do I Kiss First?' is a nice 3 note motif, but the main sound of the score is hard electronic percussion music that no doubt serves as highly effective action music.

'Who Do I Kiss First?' is one of the few cues that goes against the grain of the album. It's like 'Kayla' from the X-Men Origins: Wolverine soundtrack, and Harry always seems to put one of those in and it's a good thing. It's a lovely rendition of the main theme with quiet strings and piano played upon Harry's famous electronic interference sound. Controversially, One of the best cues of the score is 'The Stanton Curve' which is almost rip-off of Hans Zimmer's Joker theme 'Why So Serious?' from The Dark Knight. The differences are there, it's much less twisted and more electronic, but it's clearly very similar.

Conclusion

Emotionally it doesn't quite do it for me. It is a solid action score from Harry Gregson-Williams with some great action material, but it's blatantly un-original and I already have a big collection of very similar scores and funnily enough Harry Gregson-Williams name is on all of them. Get it if you want additional cues to complement Spy Game and The Taking Of Pelham 1 2 3, but if you think that's more than enough, you won't miss much by skipping this.

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Listen to the Unstoppable soundtrack by Harry Gregson-Williams below: