RSD - Lara Croft: Tomb Raider Vinyl Soundtrack Review
For Record Store Day 2021 they announced a surprising vinyl release - The soundtrack to 2001’s Lara Croft Tomb Raider. We’re taking a look back at the movie and the soundtrack 20 years later.
I have no shortage of guilty pleasures in the movie and music world. I'm pretty sure this movie is not seen in high regard in the cinephile world. But I love it. I love it!
A surprising but technically timely release as the film is celebrating it's 20th anniversary. If we're digging in the 20 year vault though, I wouldn't be upset if they released Black Hawk Down, Enemy at the Gates or even an expanded Pearl Harbor score.
This soundtrack release features all the songs from the film pressed onto this double LP set in metallic "golden triangle" vinyl. It features the original promo artwork and gatefold with production stills and promo images. I'm actually really glad they did this. I love the photography and graphic design of the original album art and I really wouldn't want them to change it. This is exactly what I would want out of a Tomb Raider release.
Sometimes I'll grumble when a new vinyl release is exactly the same as the old CD release. In this case I don’t mind the art direction choice. The only issue with that choice is it seems that the artwork is pretty much upcycled from the actual CD artwork. Some of the images in the gatefold are slightly grainy and out of focus. This probably wouldn’t be noticeable in a jewel case sized print out, but when expanded to 12 inches, it doesn’t quite hold up. There is also an oddly chosen photo of Lara walking in the temple that is just blown out and blurry. Very strange to choose such a bad quality photo when they could easily have replaced it with any promo image or film still. I suspect for this release they did not have to rights to chance up any of the artwork.
The record itself looks great. An appropriate colorway choice for the film with a tie in to a key story element of the golden triangle. I don't know why, but for some reason I don't usually like gold or silver records. I have no logical explanation. This one has a different gold hue than you usually see in gold colored vinyl. On the nit-picky side this hue of gold doesn’t quite match the ‘Golden Triangle’ gold color from the film and I’ve seen records that match that gold much closer. But that’s a stretch of a criticism.
The labels also feature a nice choice of stills from the film with each side’s music tracks. One disappointment for this release (which was surprisingly pricey in comparison to other Record Store Day releases) was that it came with basic paper sleeves. At this point for a premium priced and advertised as limited/special record I would expect a poly lined sleeve. At this point no records should be coming in paper sleeves.
Now, this is the soundtrack release and does not feature any score material by Graeme Revell. Normally I'd be disappointed by that but I can't think of a standout track from the score they would choose to use as the suite.
One thing I didn't know about this film was that at one point Michael Kamen was attached to the project. He recorded a demo but there wasn't much feedback from the director and producer so he just kind of moved on to another project. Band of Brothers. Probably a wise move for him. I would however love to hear that sampler. Maybe one day that can be unearthed from the Tomb Raider vault.
This is another one of those stories where the score was written in 2 weeks after a composer shuffle. In some cases you get magnificent gems like the Air Force One score by Jerry Goldsmith. But more often than not those scores are typically satisfactory at best.
I've always considered Revell's score serviceable to the film but uninspiring. There is one track I really love called Powell and the Illuminati but not a lot of other really stand out material. Although going back to listen to it again to do the review I actually enjoyed it much more than I remembered. Definitely a score I will give another chance to.
One thing I confirmed when going back to read up on the soundtrack was that the original score release was mislabeled. Which always confused me because the track that I love should be the one titled "Lara Dreams of her Father". So if you are listening to the score, the track names might not make sense.
Music-wise , this is one of the very few examples where I love the soundtrack (mixed curation of songs) more than the original score.
The main reason is this soundtrack is a time capsule of early 2000s music that I listened to. This was right up my alley when I was a young teen. (I feel like I was the target market for this movie at the time). The soundtrack featured tracks by U2, Chemical Brothers, Outkast, Fatboy Slim, Moby, Groove Armada, and featured Nine Inch Nails' Deep which is not featured on any other NIN studio vinyl albums. And this track is from a particularly badass part of the movie when everyone is slow motion walking toward the camera with a Chinook helicopter taking off behind them. This movie was made for a 13 year old boy.
The songs chosen for the film really contribute to the vibe of this film. Leaning heavily on electronic, techno, a bit of industrial and some more ambient tracks. Again, this is a time capsule soundtrack.
One huge miss or omission is the highlight track of the film. U2's Elevation was probably the most notable song associated with the film. The soundtrack includes the “Tomb Raider” mix. Not sure why it's called that when the film version of the song is actually the Influx Remix. This track plays as Lara approaches Angkor Wat with an eastern flavoured remix of U2's hit track.
That is a track that made its way into my itunes playlists for years. I love both versions, but I would prefer they included the Influx Remix.
Other standout tracks for me include BT’s The Revolution, Groove Armada's Edge Hill, Fluke's Absurd, and Leftfield's Songs of Life. My tastes did skew toward the more ambient tracks or the ones frankly resembling more film score music. Terra Frima perfectly underscores a key scene in the film. One of incredible character growth and plot development.
The film is a great example of early 2000s filmmaking. I don't think many people consider that time period to have a strong stylistic feel but I think it does.
Many of these techno action films had this intense kinetic energy, flashy styling, quick editing, and it was a transition period where films often utilized state of the art practical effects, while transitioning more into CGI elements that hadn't quite matured at the time. They were serviceable in 2001, but do not hold up as well today.
I still remember this trailer so vividly. "This summer, the planets will align, time will stand still". This movie was toward the end of an era for these types of films.
I thought the casting of Angelina Jolie was perfect. She is my Lara Croft. Her somewhat criticized accent never bothered me. I heard worse fake British accents. I was surprised to learn years later that Daniel Craig was British and faking an American accent as this was my first introduction to the future 007.
I really think Jolie’s Croft is one of the greatest female action leads in a movie. She's up there for me with Alien’s Ripley. She embodied this iconic character perfectly. She had a sense of adventure, strength, vulnerability and obviously physically she looks great at this character.
The movie also featured a ton of really fun action set pieces. Even the intro which was kind of dumb and made no sense was really fun. If I was extremely wealthy, I too would build an elaborate ancient temple replica to battle robots in my mansion. If you hadn't seen the movie yet, I might have lost some of the room there.
The film is visually beautiful, keeping true to its Indiana Jones genre template of exotic locations and impeccably crafted practical sets. The impressive sets harken back to classic adventure serials. The Angkor Wat temple, more specifically Ta Prohm provided the ultimate visual backdrop to this type of genre film. When you picture lost cities or ancient temples… this is the visual that comes to mind.
I especially loved the final set piece “The Temple of Time” with the massive planets rotating above a Siberian cave lake. Yes, it's insanely silly. But so fun, and an incredible feat of soundstage engineering.
While not a critically acclaimed film, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider did perform well at the box office and for me is one of those movies I can re-watch any time. The soundtrack provided a great energy to the film that kept the action sequences exciting and kinetic. It made Lara seem badass and cool. It served the movie perfectly.
As for a recommendation I don't think I can tell you that for this release. This is one of those albums you either know and want to own, or really isn't on your radar and is likely viewed as a random collection of music from the early 2000s. For most people I think the purchase of this album will be 80% nostalgia factor.
There is nothing overly special about this release that makes it a ‘break the bank on Discogs’ situation for most people if you miss out. For me, if I couldn't get it, I actually would be disappointed because if you asked me out of the blue to name some of my most listened to soundtracks (not scores), I would list this album.
So there we have it, Tomb Raider. I love it! For me it sits in a special category with the Indiana Jones movies, National Treasure, The Mummy. Anything related to archaeological or history adventure. Sign me up.
