In the early 2000s, Digimon was a cultural phenomenon to be reckoned with.
Drafting off of the previous explosive success of Pokemon (and sharing the same suffix), Digimon told the story of a group of kids thrust into a Digital world, given the responsibility of saving their own physical one with the help of their talking creature companions.
At the height of Digimon‘s success in the United States, 20th Century Fox Animation and Saban released the eponymous Digimon: The Movie.
Nostalgia aside, it’s not a great flick. Intended to bridge the two generations of Digimon teenagers, Digimon: The Movie mashes up three short films into one narrative, with pretty mixed results. Mamoru Hosoda’s original, clever Digimon Adventure and Digimon Adventure: Our War Game get chopped to bits, removing much of the context of the original and adding in some pretty bad American translation. Not to mention, the movie’s actual content was shortened for an awful Angela Anaconda sketch, which… the less said the better.
However bad the anime itself may be, its soundtrack is an absolute home run. Hard to say who over at Fox had the idea to make the film a best-of comparison of everything happening in Ska was, but we hope they got a huge bonus.
The soundtrack included The Mighty Mighty Bosstoness’ “The Impression I Get” as well as Less Than Jakes’ “All My Best Friends Are Metalheads.” Original music was written for the film by Shuki Levi, the man responsible for some real hitters like Power Rangers and his work in the film to mix in the score with the rest of the movie is top knotch.
As much as the movie may have messed with the show’s original story, it’s hard not to remember being a kid and having a nice summer watching Tai and friends run around Tokyo trying to save the world one last time while Barenaked Ladies’ “One Week” plays. Plus, they beat Shrek to the punch in canonizing Smash Mouth’s “All Star” as a kid’s movie must, which must count for something.