Superman Returns — hear the score online!

Want to hear John Ottman’s Superman Returns score eight days before the movie comes out in theatres, and seven days before the CD comes out in stores? Believe it or not, you can — just click here.

I have only listened to the score once so far, and I don’t intend to listen to it again until after I have seen the movie, but I like what I hear. Ottman — whose past debt to John Williams is obvious if you compare, e.g., his ‘The Arrests’ from The Usual Suspects (1995) with Williams’s ‘The Conspirators’ from JFK (1991) — makes good use of Williams’s classic Superman themes, but he adds his own unique material, too, giving his score an emotional resonance that is faithful to the original score but takes it to some interesting new places. Which is certainly more than can be said for the scores to the other Superman sequels.