I love movie soundtracks. I own quite a few, which I often listen to as I write. There are some tracks that I enjoy at the start, but once they reach a certain point in the song I find myself hastily skipping to the next track. The reason for this is that they rapidly devolve into an entirely different and inferior tune.

Thankfully, the films that include these songs only use the good parts of the songs on this list and they leave out the lackluster parts. So let’s compare the parts the films used to the full pop songs to discover how the films managed to make mediocre songs sound amazing.

Back to the Future – The Power of Love

Huey Lewis’s “The Power of Love” starts Back to the Future off on the right foot, creating a fun-loving feeling that permeates the rest of the film.

However, the actual song itself fails to maintain its promising start. At the 1:56 mark the song turns on a dime and loses its momentum. It never recovers from the devastating shift.

Highlander – Princes of the Universe

The opening of Highlander is so awesome. After hearing the epic voice of Sean Connery explain the basic premise of the film, we get to hear Queen blare it out in equally epic fashion in their song “Princes of the Universe.”

But if you listen to the whole song, you soon realize that the first 1:26 of the song is the only good part. The rest sounds like some kind of parody of the first part. So sad.

Mortal Kombat – Juke Joint Jezebel

Remember when Sonya took revenge on Kano in Mortal Kombat? That was a pretty cool fight, punctuated by a moody tune.

Now try to listen to the whole song. At the 1:03 mark it completely falls apart as the music fades out to make room for some singers warbling about “the revelation.” It’s just awful, and the background music supporting the whole thing just reminds you of how great the first minute of the song was.

Mortal Kombat – Control (Juno Reactor Instrumental)

I’m not done with Mortal Kombat. There’s also the fight between Liu Kang and Reptile. It’s long and brutal, and it has one of the best songs in the whole movie.

Of course, that’s only if you take out the whole bizarre middle section of the song from about 3:00 to 4:35. It’s a minute and a half of filler, which is odd because the song certainly doesn’t need it. Even if it just kept repeating the first 3 minutes of the song for 6 minutes, I would still love it because it’s just so great to listen to. But they felt the need to add an empty stretch of dull music to rob the song of perfection.

Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves – (Everything I Do) I Do It for You

The end credits of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves come to a close over Bryan Adams’ beautiful tune “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You.” It’s pure magic.

But after the full song ends, it keeps going for another two and a half minutes! From 4:14 to 6:45 it’s a whole bunch of nothingness. And the most baffling thing about it is that it’s totally unnecessary. The end credits of the movie certainly don’t warrant another two and half minutes of filler music. They end as the song seemingly ends. But here’s the whole song in all its elongated glory.

Can you think of any other examples of pop songs that were wisely cut down to only their best parts for films? Maybe one from The Wedding Singer or the Guardians of the Galaxy films? Feel free to leave it in a comment below.

This is the Deja Reviewer bidding you farewell until we meet again.

All video clips are the copyright of their respective owners.