"Bring Me That Horizon" - The Music of Pirates of the Caribbean - At World's End

You know, I think in some respects, the Pirates franchise was a fluke. At the time of its conception, the last big pirate movie was Cutthroat Island. While sporting an amazing score from John Debney, the movie was ultimately a box office failure and is generally considered as big of a flop as Heaven’s Gate. So when Disney said they were going to make a movie based on the Pirates of the Caribbean, which, until that point had strictly been an old, nostalgic, but popular theme park ride, everyone kind of scratched their heads. Enter Jerry Bruckheimer, director Gore Verbinski, and writers Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, the ending result was The Curse of the Black Pearl. And then it went on to make insane amounts of money, shocking everyone (including Disney) and spawned two sequels: Dead Man’s Chest and At World’s End.

With At World’s End, Zimmer returns to finish the swashbuckling musical journey that began in The Curse of the Black Pearl. In my opinion, he and his team deliver what may be the most satisfying of the three scores. While some of the themes like “Jack’s Theme”, “Davy Jones’ Theme” and “He’s A Pirate” make some appearances in either full force or subtle variation, Hans Zimmer has brought a whole new gambit of musical material to this final chapter.

The album opens with “Hoist The Colours.” This rousing pirate jig is one of the new main themes of the movie. It makes various appearances throughout the score and is a soaring piece of music that’s used to represent unity between the Pirate Clans as they make their last stand for survival at the edge of the world.

Zimmer’s next big, new, notable thematic addition is what he’s referred to in interviews as “The Love Theme”. Crazy, I know. It’s big, it’s majestic, and it is everything you’d expect from something regarded so boldly as “The Love Theme”. Brace yourself for it, because it rears its big, bold, beautiful head in the track “At Wit’s End”. Like sighting a brachiosaurus in the middle of a theme park, “The Love Theme” really captures the sense of what’s going on with this movie. The theme not only symbolizes the distressed love-struggle between Will and Elizabeth but, also somehow ties into the relationships between all of the important “good guys”. The theme also miraculously manages to double as an action set piece as heard in the cue “Up Is Down” (whoodathunkit?!). Maestro Zimmer also tips his cowboy hat to much-loved-by-MV-but-farthest-thing-from-MV composer Ennio Morricone in the track “Parlay.” Bottom line, “The Love Theme” proves itself to be versatile and functional, as I’m sure it is also immensely effective in the context of the film.

For those craving themes from the previous two adventures, next up Zimmer does some really fun things with “Jack’s Theme” in “Multiple Jacks”. Using the expanded motif we heard in Dead Man’s Chest but with some fun, clunky, bouncy, almost comedic instrumentation mixed with some pretty creepy, atmospheric orchestration, this is probably one of the most interesting Zimmer cues I’ve ever heard. Jack’s back…though I can only imagine what the music is actually implying. We also hear a bit of “Davy Jones’s Theme” in “At Wit’s End”.

I know, I know, action music! There’s great stuff is toward the end of the album. “What Shall We Die For?” and “I Don’t Think Now Is The Best Time” are two connecting tracks that total up to approximately 12 minutes of really fun action writing. This is Zimmer doing what he does best, bringing an array of themes online and ready for battle. Most if not all the themes from all three films make it in here… along with some substantial choral work (a particularly rousing rendition of “Hoist the Colours”).

The last two tracks, “One Day” and “Drink Up Me Hearties” are two of my personal favorites. Again encompassing, themes from all three films and intermixing them into this grand send off for the series, it’s just fantastic. In “One Day,” Zimmer makes good if not predictable re-use of orchestrational detailing found in both Dead Man’s Chest and The Da Vinci Code. Refer to the respective cues “Hello Beastie” and CheValiers De Sangreal”. He just levels the music and themes on top of each other and it builds and swells, just fantastic. He might as well be doing his victory dance down on the football field, after making a touchdown. Just beautiful. That hand-off was terrific, Randy. Err… Now a word from our sponsors!

At World’s End really is the end of a musical journey for Capt. Jack and Co. (until they do spin-offs). The ground work that was laid in Curse of the Black Pearl and Dead Man’s Chest come to an epic finish with this score. Zimmer not only gives us three scores of pirate swashbuckling action music, he also manages to update a style of writing that genre composers Steiner and Korngold gave birth to. Either you’ll feel it bastardizes a legacy or bumps it up a few notches. I’ll leave that up to you!

Bottom line, this is a Zimmer fan’s score album of the year, its good fun and of course a must listen for any Pirate scallywag.

Yo Ho and Drink Up Me Hearties!

Rating: 4.5/5
Favorite Track: 13