1 |
Parade
Of Ants (1:01) |
2 |
Destroyer
(2:05) |
3 |
Sad
Lucas (0:59) |
4 |
Zac
Attempts Potion (1:43) |
5 |
Head
Of Council (1:07) |
6 |
Parents
Leave On Trip (0:41) |
| 7 |
Zac
Makes Potion (0:56) |
8 |
Colony
Floods (0:47) |
9 |
Colony
Destroyed (1:27) |
10 |
Mommo
Awakens (2:05) |
11 |
The
Queen (2:11) |
12 |
Team
Competition (2:47) |
13 |
Wasp
Attack (3:58) |
14 |
Honeydew
Feast (2:25) |
15 |
The
Ant Mother (2:25) |
16 |
Sneaking
Home (1:20) |
17 |
Hang
Gliding (2:01) |
18 |
Jellybeans
(1:23) |
19 |
Frog
Attack (2:15) |
20 |
Zac
And Lucas (2:17) |
21 |
Exterminator
Arrives (3:02) |
22 |
Asking
For Wasp Help (1:37) |
23 |
Launching
The Attack (1:47) |
24 |
Assault
On Stan (6:05) |
25 |
Lucas
Gets Named (2:12) |
26 |
Home
Coming (1:13) |
27 |
Bullies
And Sweet Rock (4:58) |
REVIEW
It sure doesn’t feel good when you have big shoes to
fill. Warner Bros’ The Ant Bully suspiciously follows
the successful mould of Disney Pixar’s family-friendly
A Bug’s Life (1998) and DreamWorks’ gritty Antz
(1998).
The
problem is - we have a feeling that Warner Bros’ flick
about those six-legged creatures came eight years too late.
Poor
John Debney, who serves as the composer of this movie which
many fans of animation are waiting slam. Before him, we had
Randy Newman’s joyful score for Disney Pixar, and Harry
Gregson-Williams and John Powell’s collaboration for
DreamWorks.
50-year-old Debney, who has his own fair share of compositions
for animated features like The Emperor’s New Groove
(2000) and Chicken Little (2005), does not disappoint and
does a decent job on this album.
While
there are no memorable themes on the 57-minute soundtrack,
it does provide moments of adventure and peril which you would
expect from a film like this. The well layered orchestrations
are signature Debney-style, which effectively uses a wide
range of instruments to bring out the mood of each cue.
Flutes
and tribal drums complement each other in “The Any Mother”,
while quiet clarinet solos bring out the melancholy in “Zac
and Lucas”. A fitting highlight of the album would be
the 6-odd minute long “Assault on Stan”, which
showcases Debney’s flair for a busy and complex music
arrangement without losing track of its entertainment value.
Although
the score is commendable technically, it could have done with
a little more engagement with listeners with more distinct
themes and memorable cues. After all, this is the “third
insect-related music score” viewers are going to remember
by, and people are going to judge it with the previous two
in mind. So it may help with a little more character imbued.
See,
told you filling someone else’s big shoes isn’t
a good feeling.
SOUNDTRACK
RATING:
Review
by John Li
|
