After John Williams left to pen his wonderful effort for Angela's Ashes, Chris Columbus took on the services of James Horner for Bicenennial Man. Based on an Isaac Asimov book, the film stars Robin Williams in touchy-feely mode as he plays an house maid android who lives through two centuries of the same family and eventually grows into a real human being etc etc. Yes, it is an interesting idea that was explored well with Data in Star Trek, but sounds like a pretty yucky concept for a film and the fact that its set over so many generations means that it's more than likely to have its fair share of soppy moments when characters die and so forth. Following his extended hiatus and very sporadic scoring schedule since the dreaded Titanic, James Horner seems pretty much in the same mode when he left. Essentially this is a remix of many of his previous ideas and rather than provide much (if anything) new it provides some interesting variations other well trodden motifs.
The opening cue is a kind of minimalist march that has inherited a large dose of the rather lovely music from Sneakers. Using the piano as its base, it increases until it almost explodes, leaving the piano behind on its own but then building up for another climax that sounds more like the ending from Star Trek 2. Had it been original, an inspired compostion, but as it stands, an interesting mixture of ideas that makes for a good start. What might be called the Aliens interval starts off Special Delivery and this provides for a nicely mysterious, sci-fi sound. Hints of Titanic mixed with The Spitfire Grill form some of the more atmospheric passages, such as in The Magic Spirit which has a wonderful mixture of synth and acoustic sounds that produce some of the mysterioso segments since Field of Dreams.
One of the major motifs is a slightly altered version of the gentle piano motif from Deep Impact which works well in context and thankfully isn't repeated to quite the extent it was in its source. One of the other themes from Deep Impact also makes a brief appearance during The Wedding and in fact makes this version sound almost somewhat similar to the identically titled track from Deep Impact, even if it does start to wander into Braveheart territory toward the end. Danny Elfman's favourite little motif that uses the descending and ascending motif from Morricone's Mission also makes a few notable appearances here, but in the mixture doesn't stand out quite as badly as it does in Elfman's more original efforts.
You might want to skip the song which is frankly awful, unmemorable and probably one of Horner's least inspiring efforts. Even Celine Dion's usually powerful voice seems to fail in giving it any kind of edge and could have been sung by anyone and be equally bad. In common with many recent Horner scores, the album is perhaps a fraction too generous and it wears a little thin by the end and anyone who who can't abide Horner's music will find much to slaughter. However, for its faults, this is actually quite an entertaining score and since it contains so many of Horner's trademark ideas and motifs, each track makes use of yet another idea thus it never becomes too tedious. As it contains almost no totally original material, I cannot award a high score, but if you were to hear it entirely independently of other Horner scores then this makes for a superior entry for the touchy-feely family drama genre.
Rating ~ 
Total Time ~ 66:27