As much as I hate to admit it, there are scores by James Horner that I find difficult to appreciate, this being one of them. And I actually don't find it just hard to appreciate, I really don't like it. Horner's detractors who claim that he overdoes it with dramatic scores aren't always too far from the truth, which is revealed in this album. I won't say that it's a completely worthless score, but its real problem lies in the fact that it *must* be heard in the context of the film. Hearing it on it's own will do little for die-hard soundtrack collectors or even Horner fans, and will certainly do nothing for average collectors. There are a couple good parts, I particularly like "Goodbye and Godspeed," but it's too little to late to save the soundtrack as a whole. Some redemption may be found in the shorter cues like "The Wedding," which contains a lovely soft melody ocasionally assisted by piano.
There are a couple decent themes, but they are hard to pick out at the slow tempo the CD craws along at. If you want to purchase a decent Horner score from recent years, don't make it this one unless you're a big Horner fan, and even then you might want to avoid it. For being the score to immediately follow Titanic in Horner's career, I'm very dissapointed.
