Mirrors 2 Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (CD)
Steve Barton
|
Reviewed by Scott A. Johnson
Music Composed by Frederik Wiedmann
Whether you like a film or not, there are a lot of pieces that go together to make it either a success or a failure. In many cases, where the movie fails in total, there were lots of little wins that, taken on their own, make the film acceptable. A film’s soundtrack is one of the larger pieces that can make or break a movie by building tension and providing the overall feel of the flick. Case in point: The original motion picture soundtrack to Mirrors 2, taken on its own, is moody and beautiful in places, sadly generic in others, but still is a good effort at a film score.
The score’s 26 tracks were composed by Frederik Wiedmann, veteran of more than twenty five other movie scores such as The Hills Run Red, Whiteout, Return to House on Haunted Hill, and Beneath. You might recognize a few of those titles as Direct-to-Video fare, which seems to constitute most of Wiedmann’s resume. His experience shows in the composition of this suite of music. From the opening titles, what we get is well-conducted (thanks to Allan Wilson), expertly performed music that does its job: It flows with the onscreen action to help build tension and to move the scenes along. However, the score comes across as a bit uneven, teetering between uninspired and breathtaking. A few of the pieces sound as if they could’ve come from a different movie, and several seem as if they could come from every other movie.
The first two tracks in the CD come across as generic and flat, passionless and uninspired. While technically flawless and well performed, they still sound like the backing track to almost every other DTV movie in the post Tales From the Crypt age. Fast strings, wailing vocals and wide thundering cymbals mark the performances, but without any raw emotion or feeling that takes the listener along the rails. Similarly the fourth and fifth tracks repeat the tired cliches, as do a full half of the remaining tracks. But what the songs lack in originality, they make up for in sheer beauty. So very well performed as they are, each of even these tracks are worth listening to.
There are a few tracks, however, that make the whole CD worth owning, and worth listening to multiple times. Track number three, “Slice,” is brutal, frightening, and evocative. Track eight, “Keller Returns,” is full of odd rhythms and enough quirks that it is a sheer pleasure of dementia and musicianship to listen to. Another pleasant surprise is the mix of orchestral goodness and lounge jazz that is “Loosing Her Up.”
In total, the music is beautifully performed with some very nice moments of originality in them. Even the tracks that sound uninspired still have a technical flawlessness that makes them worth a listen. Though the soundtrack is missing a “signature,” it is still a good score in that it does help the story flow along.
Track Listing
- Main Title
- Kayla
- Slice
- Alive
- Run!
- Who is Henry Show
- Eleanor’s Lament
- Keller Returns
- Suspicious
- Loosing Her Up
- The Murder
- Want a Slice?
- At Henry’s House
- A Corpse in the Basement
- Car Crash
- Max’s Theme
- Broken Glass for Dinner
- Nightmare
- Revenge
- Arriving at the Crime Scene
- Reflection
- In the Basement
- Mirror Syndrome
- Breaking Glass
- It’s Over
- Mirrors II
4 out of 5
Discuss Mirrors 2 Original Motion Picture Soundtrack in the space below!
Categorized:Reviews
