Buy it... if you've always longed to hear Randy Edelman's "To the Stars" theme from Dragonheart performed solely symphonically and seek a competent and functional sequel score.

Avoid it... if you expect Mark McKenzie to really take advantage of this great opportunity and create a magical score, though a poor performance is partly to blame.

Dragonheart: A New Beginning: (Mark McKenzie/Randy Edelman) Apparently, Universal Pictures was so intent on milking this cow of every last drop of cash that the studio was willing to accept a script for a sequel to 1996's popular Dragonheart even though the story of that film made it clear through its narrative that dragons are now extinct. In the world of straight-to-video sequels, however, you never have to let that kind of problem get in the way. Nor do you have to worry about the fact that none of the cast returns and, for the most part, there are no significant connections to the previous story. A dumb plot, poor special effects, and no-name crew plagued the film and it appropriately languished on store shelves. In terms of the music for Dragonheart: A New Beginning, there are at least a few connections between composers Mark McKenzie and Randy Edelman (whose original score remains a favorite across all ages). The two men are good friends and McKenzie attempted to continue the previous score's success by incorporating some of Edelman's material and style into his own effort. The sequel, slowed by production delays for nearly a year, changes location from the original, finally taking place in the Orient. This opportunity allowed McKenzie to adapt what material he felt necessary from the Edelman's Dragonheart score and infuse it with a touch of Far Eastern interpretation for the new setting. The resulting score is both functional and inspirational, although the ethnic influence is unfortunately only slight. The first and most obvious difference between the two scores is the fact that McKenzie relies much more heavily on the symphony rather than the synthesizer. What's interesting about this franchise, though, is that Dragonheart was one of Edelman's few electronically dominated scores which actually enhanced the fantasy-driven spirit of its film successfully (as opposed to, for instance, Gettysburg, for which the electronics were completely inappropriate). McKenzie has always been an orchestrator at heart, and it can be heard in his tendency to wisely use whatever size of ensemble is available to him. He usually does pretty well with undersized performing groups, too, sometimes double or triple mixing a section of the orchestra onto itself in order to add needed depth to the score.