Search - Ron Owen, Barlowgirl, Steven Curtis Chapman :: End of the Spear: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

Ronald Owen spears a bulls-eye

Sam Van Eerden | Mukwonago, WI | 03/09/2006

(3 out of 5 stars)

"So if Owen hit a home-run with this soundtrack, then why I am only giving it 3 stars? The answer is simple, but quite unfortunate. While Owen wrote and conducted several beautiful music for this movie, the lack of instruments and implementation of electronics and synthesizers really detracts from the melodies (however beautiful they are).



The "Family" theme of Steve Saint and his Dad Nate is quite a touching piece which reappears (in many forms) probably more than any other, but shines the most in "Father and son." The jungle theme, which also doubles as Mincayani's theme, is featured prominently in (the soundtrack's best cue) "Jaguar Hunt." Unfortunately, the action pieces really suffer from a lack of a large orchestra that can really flesh the sounds out. Instead (because of a low budget), Ron Owen had to depend on vocals and rapid bass synthesizers to thump out the action. The end result is a choppy, over-powering, but ultimately VERY cheesy sound (aka) "Vengeance."



There are a couple other excellent themes here. The first instrumental track "River Requiem" is gorgeous, with some stunning vocals. "Fleeing" delivers the single-most sweeping theme of all, but it is sadly short. Which is another problem with the production of this album. There are 70 minutes of music here, spread out over 30 tracks (and 5 of those are CCM pop songs). So, unfortunately, whatever good themes that are there are continually being reproduced because the tracks are too short to develop anything more stunning then what we've already been given. To his credit, though, Owen (a young film composer) knows the effect of the human voice, and gives it full reign on the score's longest instrumental cue "Tears In The Sand;" played as all 5 missionaries are being murdered. This is very similar to what Debney did for "The Passion of the Christ" in 2004.



So in the end, "Spear" contains a few very beautiful themes, but these are lost beneath a slush of other poorly mixed and recorded cues.



Owen's underlying music deserved better packaging."

Disappointed

Benjamin Jones | Atlanta, GA | 09/11/2006

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Instead of writing a lengthy review, I will get straight to the point. There are many beautiful pieces on this soundtrack, but two of the MAIN themes were not included. These two pieces were the primary reasons that I bought the soundtrack, and was extremely disappointed when I found out they were not included. The first is the song used in the movie trailer and was also contained in the movie itself. The closest rendition of it can be found at the end of "Jaguar Hunt," but it only resembles the original theme at best. The second was used for the "Beyond the Gates" trailer and was also contained the movie. It was the one where the male vocals sound like they are chanting "Yo-Jim-Bo."



Neither of these pieces were included in the soundtrack, which I believe to be a terrible oversight, considering that most of the tracks on the CD sound very similar. Again, there are some beautiful themes included, but expect to hear much repetition. I simply warn others so they will not be disappointed as well."