I am halfway through watching Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning, Part I.
I try not to break up watching movies, especially good ones (this one is good), but when I realized it’s Part I and won’t have an ending anyway, I thought, why not?
I don’t want to write about it—yet—except to say how delighted I am at the prominent use of Lalo Schifrin’s main themes: the “Mission” theme (main title) and “The Plot.” This has been the case throughout the film series, but it seems to have only grown.
It seems like in most cases when a movie is made from an old TV show (I don’t have the wherewithal to make a list), the theme just doesn’t have the right tone to apply to the underscore. At best, it’s relegated to the credits or a kind of cameo where it inevitably sticks out and reminds you you’re watching a movie made from some corny old show.
Not so here. Lalo’s themes are all over Lorne Balfe’s score, and you could say, they are the score. They work big, they work small—in a few notes or through an entire scene—and they seem totally topical and contemporary and very, very “now.”
For a theme and pilot score written almost 60 years ago, that’s quite an accomplishment. And great work by Balfe to make Lalo’s themes feel so fresh and timeless.