King Kong Music by James Newton Howard Decca   Reviewed by Tony Buchsbaum	In the world of film scores, it's been a pretty dismal couple of years. While there have been standouts, there's been very little inspiring movie music, certainly little worth writing about. That's one of the reasons I'm so thankful that the end of 2005 saw the release of several major scores that were supposed to be wonderful -- and are. The behemoth King Kong, directed by Peter Jackson, was to have had a score by his Lord of the Rings composer Howard Shore. However, at the last minute the score was scrapped due to so-called "creative differences." Jackson turned to the terrific and versatile James Newton Howard -- adept at romantic scores like The Prince of Tides, atmospheric scores like The Sixth Sense and scores with an action edge like Signs -- to take a crack at it. He hit it out of the park. The Kong score is muscular, yet filled with tender moments: two extremes that will both challenge your iPod and tug at your heartstrings. For its considerable adventure pedigree, Kong is also primarily a love story, albeit on a grand scale, and the score brings home the larger-than-life action, the terror and the climactic emotional wallop. It's the latter area where the score really works best. Howard's themes for Ann Darrow and Kong are as emotional as if they had been composed for a more typical love story. The scenes set atop the Empire State Building are both thrilling and heartbreaking: Kong battles the biplanes that buzz around like pesky killer bees while trying to protect his diminutive lady love. As the end draws near, when the two recall a tender moment on Skull Island, then again when Kong realizes he's climbed himself into a corner from which there is no escape, the music swells to match Ann's own realization that this ape will be the biggest love of her life. The melodies are simple, yet they work on a more complex level as Ann realizes with both relief and unbearable sadness that Kong is doomed. While one might wonder what Howard Shore did that didn't work, James Newton Howard's work here is powerful enough to make such a thought fleeting. His is a score fit for a king. | January 2006   Tony Buchsbaum is the author of Total Eclipse and a contributing editor to January Magazine and Blue Coupe. He and his family live in Lawrenceville, New Jersey where he is hard at work on an exciting new chapter in his life.