VA - Tomb Raider - Music From The Motion Picture (2001)

It's entirely appropriate for a film based on a video game to be heavy on electronica dance -- it's a cliché, even, since don't those bleeps and bloops sound just like something you hear on a video game? Well, that used to be the case with a Commodore 64 or a Vic 20, but on any modern game, which Tomb Raider surely, the electronic music is a little more orchestrated. Nevertheless, this large dose of heavy beats fits the film well, since Lara Croft seems to be the kind of stylish, classy English gal that would have grooved to Leftfield's "Open Up" while in college, and still will hit the clubs to dance to BT, Moby, the Chemicals, Basement Jaxx, Fatboy Slim, and Groove Armada, while putting on U2 (who graciously donates the "Tomb Raider Mix" of "Elevation," which now makes it sound like a Pop outtake), Missy Elliott (again, a new mix of "Get Ur Freak On," this time with Nelly Furtado on vocals), and, when she's frisky, Outkast while at home. (You may be saying to yourself, "well this is assuming that Lara Croft is real," when the real leap of judgment here is that Lara has a social life -- nowhere in the movie is it apparent that she ever leaves her damn mansion, or has a real relationship with anyone outside of the big test robot and its operator). So, that means this record is as sleek, glossy, and formulaic as the film itself, and like the movie, it's reasonably enjoyable as it plays (providing you're in the mood for it), but it's also curiously dated with its heavy electronic bent and devotion to the video game, feeling as if it really should have come out in 1997/1998 instead of the summer of 2001. And, like the movie, it's also pretty forgettable, more memorable for Angelina Jolie on the cover than the music itself.~Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine