Best-known for the punchy electronic/orchestral scores for the two Bourne films - The Bourne Identity and Bourne Supremacy - along with the ebullient music for The Italian Job remake, John Powell's music for X-Men: The Last Stand is arguably his best score to date.

Powell's prior work was a clear fusion of traditional, modern, and exotic sounds, but his elegant orchestral writing really became evident in Ivan Reitman's underrated alien comedy, Evolution. Though written with an overtly cheeky contemporary edge, Evolution contained a few sweeping passages that hinted at the kind large-scale work the composer could comfortably compose for a big orchestra.

Each of the films in the X-Men triptych were scored by different composers (with Kamen having to do a partial overhaul of his own X-Men score when director Bryan Singer wanted a more ambient, impressionistic design), and while some fans may lament the departure of Singer and X-Men 2 composer John Ottman from the third film, Powell's own contribution to the saga is equally rich and grand.

Like the film's dark, action-heavy tone, Powell employs a harder urgency for the combat sequences. Cues like "St. Lupus Day" have rippling trumpet fanfares and periodic bursts of chorals that recall Danny Elfman's Batman; and in "Attach on Alcatraz ," two-note brass pairings with snare drums in the middle of the cue recall transitional bridges in Alan Silvestri's outrageously bombastic Van Helsing.

Last Stand, however, is imbued with many stylistic traits that Powell's admirers will love: the emotionally strained, quasi-Middle Eastern melodic fragments used to heighten the tension after a dense percussive cluster; many sweeping orchestral passages; and modern rhythmic textures with subtle synth shadings, as in "Massacre," and the subtle, exotic percussion in "The Battle of the Cure."

The film's main theme - an energetic march first heard in the short intro, "Bathroom Tiles" - is also a gem, and offers Powell many opportunities to write threadbare or expanded variations. "Angel's Cure" has a delicate recap, and largely employs the melodic line with a triumphant denouement.

"Dark Phoenix 's Tragedy" is initially an all-percussion cue (with a thunderous bass-line oddly recalling Oliver Nelson's Six Million Dollar Man theme intro), with strings plaintively stretching the melodic line, and wringing from the audience absolute empathy and compassion. Powell adds circuitous brass fanfares before a full-orchestra recap, and liturgical finale, via female chorus. A later cue, the Barryesque "Funeral," brings that narrative chapter to a satisfying conclusion, with Powell shelving the hard percussion and heavy brass sounds in favour of strings, subtle brass, and softly played woodwinds.

The hour-long X-Men: The Last Stand album's been tightly sequenced to form a solid musical narrative, with shorter cues perfectly edited close to longer passages. First-rate engineering also ensures Powell's affinity for percussion and bass will give the stereo and sub-woofer a good workout.

Definitely one of the most satisfying, classical-styled action scores in recent years.

© 2006 Mark R. Hasan