King Arthur
What are legends if not for reinventing -- and/or hyper-inflating into Hollywood summer fare? In retooling the Arthurian legend for the goth-beguiled video game  age,  mega-producer Jerry Bruckheimer did away with details small (the lady in the lake, sword in the stone, etc.) and large (this Arthur is actually Eastern European,  by way of Rome). Composer Hans Zimmer picks up that gauntlet, producing an orchestral score bristling with massed brass, chorus and percussion -- if little of the  indigenous mysticism that made his work onGladiator/ so rewarding. What there is of that precious commodity is frontloaded via the song "Tell Me Know  (What You See)," his evocative opening collaboration with Clannad's Moya Brennan. From there, Zimmer emphasized this version's Eastern  conceits with a half-dozen suites of cues that thunder in the Russian classical tradition -- and all the melodic range of "Jingle Bells." Zimmer--not to mention  Poledouris--has done it better, but fans of outsized orchestral Gothic moodfests may yet take this one to heart.--Jerry McCulley