After the success of the excellent The Mummy and the incredible box office return of the indescribably awful The Mummy Returns, a third film was inevitable, this time starring The Rock (my mother always told me never to trust anyone whose first name is The). Continuing the pattern of having a new composer on each of the films in the series, John Debney came onboard to write an entertaining score blending various musical elements.

The days of anyone thinking twice about using electric guitars in a film set in the 16th century are gone, so brace yourselves for the first couple of tracks on the album. By far the least successful, it's here that Debney adds the guitars, a drum kit and various other electronic elements to the full orchestra. It comes off a bit like Trevor Rabin, only worse. The album really starts in the third cue though, when the orchestra is allowed to appear exclusively.

The album is short enough that most of the music is really quite exciting and most importantly, very good fun to listen to, but one thing lacking is a dominant theme. Oddly, I read an interview with Debney at the time the film came out saying how the score is pretty monothematic and the central theme is built into virtually every single cue, but no matter how many times I listen to the album I can't seem to determine what that theme might be.

There are certainly comparisons to be made with the previous two Mummy scores. Goldsmith elements abound in the action setpieces, especially in "Night Attack", and the choral arrangements are very similar to Alan Silvestri. While the score is blatantly not in the same league as The Mummy, it's probably pretty much on a par with Silvestri's score for the first sequel.

Sometimes all you want from a score is to have a bit of fun, and that's what you can get with The Scorpion King, hardly significant as a musical work but an album that is eminently listenable.

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