10 Awesome Musical Scores That Deserved Better Movies

Before Pirates Of The Caribbean, we had this somewhat lesser slice of in-name-only Disney theme park attraction adaptation.

Brian De Palma's clunky, bland and unengaging interplanetary adventure didn't exactly capture the public imagination like Pirates would. In fact, it was the first in the Mouse House's run of disastrous trips to the Red Planet, an era that also included Mars Needs Moms and John Carter.

Still, De Palma is always good for a little audiovisual style even in a movie whose writers and actors are phoning it in from distant parts of the galaxy, and as long as there's not really any plot or dialogue going on Mission To Mars becomes a significantly better movie.

Italian composing legend Ennio Morricone (who had worked with De Palma at the director's best with The Untouchables) delivered a powerful elegiac orchestral score which suggested a sweeping grandeur not present in the film's writing.

Given the amount that Morricone's work is sampled, reused and recycled, you can only hope that the Mission To Mars music one day gets to accompany the space epic that it deserves.