So what’s the most amazingly awesome cinematic music you know? The soundtrack that you put on in Safeway and suddenly you’re in a spy movie, or you know the Agents are closing in on you and it’s time to Alter and become your Mech form? What do you put on in traffic and suddenly you’re in a car chase movie?
I don’t know why, but the track from one of the trailers for Sin City really stuck with me (did this make it in the actual movie?).
On the spy side, Garbage’s The World is Not Enough has been playing in my head for a while. Not really “film music”, but a memorable theme song nonetheless.
I love the Commando soundtrack. Sure, it’s ridiculous by today’s standards, what with all the squealing synths and saxophones and such, but it conjures up a great sense of action and adventure. Driving along to it, you’re not so much heading to the store as advancing on it, into the fray, ready to do battle with any surly checkout clerks or people-with-30-items-in-the-express-lane who stand in your way.
Also, as Omniscia notes, some great fist pumping music is also hella cheesy (see also the theme music for every great action cartoon). So, for sheer “I’m going to hop in a time machine, go back to the 90s/80s and then clean the hell out of my bathroom grout” energy, I’m going to put these two.
Believe it or not, one of my favourite scores is from The Rock.
When Hans Zimmer wrote this, Crimson Tide, and The Lion King, it was like a one-two-three punch of new action movie music, but I feel like he’s been repeating these same cues ever since. Still…I like this one.
If you want to hear what a shameless knockoff sounds like, listen to Jerry Goldsmith’s theme for Total Recall right after you listen to the Anvil of Crom
