The One (Expanded Bootleg)

Review by Thomas Glorieux:

When people saw Jet Li battling Mel Gibson and Danny Glover in Lethal Weapon 4, the world knew they found the next Jackie Chan. The only difference is Jet Li plays not the light comical stunt man but more the serious fast kicking material arts specialist. Add to Jet Li a couple of other stars (namely Jet Li, Jet Li, Jet Li, Jet Li, Jet Li, ...) and you've got the movie The One, an action film about sliding into other dimensions to kill your other self to become stronger in the process. In the end The One received rather bad critic from music lovers since they basically saw Trevor Rabin return to his YES period, with some of the loudest hard rock music he ever composed for film, even surpassing those in Gone in Sixty Seconds. Add to the normal release of Varese Sarabande an extra 10 minutes and you've got my release, an expanded bootleg. The question is, what adds that to the overall rubbish of the score, quite frankly a little bit more to appreciate. The last two added tracks which aren't found on the original are in fact sort of suites, end credits, compilations of the ideas found in the score. You can actually resemble them the most with the music heard in the first three tracks, letting the main theme appear almost all the time. This is basically the best part of the music of The One, when the electronic rhythm and percussion are added with a small rock sound and the main theme, then the score is most acceptable. Harder to appreciate are the pieces in the middle of the score, and if the original ends without the last two tracks here, I can definitely understand that people hate it, in fact I would rate it lower if it wasn't for those two last tracks.

The One has good parts and bad parts, begin and end are good, the middle copes more without the main theme and hard rocking music. 'The Ritual' opens with the main theme and these are the versions you will also hear at the end of the score. 'The First' is one of the three tracks added to the expanded bootleg but in fact offers nothing to crave about, meaning also no hideous stuff. 'Multiverse' is the first sign of the hard rock music, but the difference with most of the rest is, here it basically is most acceptable and not surprisingly it has several statements of the main theme. 'Growing Stronger' reminds me of the begin rocking music with electric guitar of John Debney's The Scorpion King. From then on, you also start to notice that many of the tracks both released on the original as expanded release differ from track times. The one is short then the original and the other longer, or simply it has got to do with track listings naming the different and wrong track. Nonetheless, 'Paulie's Member' adds some of the weak moments of the hard rock music with some more light emotional music and even a cool but short fanfare after 4.28, a typical Rabin moment.

Yet, it actually starts to irritate a bit after all these moments. Tracks like 'Extreme Emotion' (being longer then the actual original on the Varese soundtrack) and especially 'A New Coarse' contain some of the worst sounding droning Rabin ever employed in his music, all through a ruckus of hard rock music sometimes. These moments are the reason why people detest the score and in fact, I can not blame them. The original end of the Varese score ends brief with slow music and even a choir (soft and not gothic like Deep Blue Sea) showing nothing of promise. And therefore I would have given The One a lower rating. But it doesn't end here, because 'End Credits' and 'The One' add both the main theme in better sounding versions, bringing mostly what was heard in the better begin of the score. So here, you get the chance to forget a bit the middle part which is basically not promising. Overall, The One is still an average album, the difference is that some have given this score ratings up to 3 stars while giving American Outlaws, Enemy of the State and various other scores 2 to 1 star ratings. Basically, I can understand a bit the love they might have for hard rock music but overall, I find that unacceptable. You like Rabin or you don't but you don't rate a much harder to enjoy album with more, basically because you appreciate hard rock, while as said Rabin used some of his worst moments in his career in this score. In the end I only recommend this score to die hard Rabin fans who favor on occasions hard rock with an edge. And people who don't like that will not suffice alone on the good versions of the main theme intermingling with that style. Even I had problems during the score but I basically remained with the rating which kept close to the ratings I gave other Rabin scores, even if they were more acceptable then The Sole, sorry The One.

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Tracks

Single Disc

1. The Ritual (1.42)

2. The First * (1.25)

3. Multiverse (3.23)

4. Growing Stronger (2.28)

5. The Light (2.15)

6. Paulie's Member (5.38)

7. Before The Start (5.05)

8. Search For Yulaw (2.23)

9. Sporadic Fire (2.05)

10. The Will To Continue (2.36)

11. Extreme Emotion (5.45)

12. A New Coarse (4.20)

13. Justification (2.08)

14. Rompie's Cue (1.13)

15. The Final Search (1.39)

16. End Credits * (3.07)

17. The One * (4.24)

* Extra Unreleased Material

Total Length: 51.47

The use of artwork or photos is posted for non profitable reasons

=== Link to Composer Site: Trevor Rabin ===