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Filmtracks Recommends: Buy it... if solid action scores excite you despite their somewhat underdeveloped electronics, and you wish to hear Mark Mancina's debut on the big stage. Avoid it... if you prefer a more established and matured Media Ventures sound that would develop for action films a few years after Speed. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
On paper, the score for Speed is well written, with several effective motifs assembled around a decent action theme. This theme is performed with noble intentions during the opening credits as they role through an elevator shaft. A delicate piano and string performance of this theme would be offered in the end titles cues. It is a surprisingly compelling theme for an otherwise brainless film. Short adaptations of this theme would appear during the softer sequences in the film, leaving the cohesion of the action material up to Mancina's secondary motif. The eight-note keyboard motif is sharp in performance and is varied in tempo throughout the score to fit into nearly every cue. Despite its simplicity, it works better than the title theme to hold the score together. The action scenes on board the speeding bus at the heart of Speed inspire the best action music from Mancina for the project, with the rescue cue (appearing second on the album) presenting a lengthy series of thematic performances. The rhythms are typically strong during the later scenes of the bus' journey, however other portions of the film suffer from arrhythmic, more dissonant cues. The difficult side of the Speed score is the fact that it is not as fleshed out as it could have been. As mentioned before, the synthesized representations of real instruments were not as well developed in 1994 and thus, some of the jumpy keyboarding and striking electronic cello cues are naked and dated. The percussive elements were already well enough established to compensate for the lack of the Media Ventures bass that rumbles through all of their current action scores. The album as a product is rearranged from film order to present the four or five best cues at the beginning. After these true highlights, the album degenerates into more mindless territory before finishing with the beautiful performance of the title theme over the end credits. Overall, it's a worthy action score, if not slightly underdeveloped, and would be an impressive debut for Mancina on the big stage. ***
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