Well, it's been a little while since I've posted anything. I will review a soundtrack to a movie, but even now I'm not sure which one I will do. I will try to do something that's not my favorite.
ah-ha! I have it!
Wall-e (2008) by Thomas Newman. I give it ****
This soundtrack I actually find quite fascinating. It has an atmosphere that's different from what I would have expected, there are parts that sound desolate, lonely, a little creepy- but only in the sense of one lone little robot on a deserted, garbage ridden world. The robot's lonely and has a lot of personality, but it doesn't actually stop to think about how strange and unpleasant it's situation could be. The music has the perfect balance of feeling and lack of emotion, it's amusing but not silly, it has depth but too much speed to let you stop for long.
I remember watching the movie and hearing the music, and it did exactly what music should do for a movie. It deepened the layers that, no matter how much anyone can try, cannot be accomplished through words or visuals. Only music can give something that level, making a movie 3-dimensional in feeling, and that's what this soundtrack does.
Not all of it is good, I'll admit. The stuff that isn't 'good' is simply not very memorable. But this music has a lot of humor too. It's not epic or big, but it deepens the movie and carries the atmosphere of the movie well. It's a little sterile, a little detached, a little silly, a little unreal.
Being an animated movie, which seems to give soundtracks different rules to go by, I'm not sure what method this soundtrack uses, therefore it seems safest to say it uses the second method. The characters are already established and what needs to be accomplished is something the characters have been working toward for so long that they have technically already accomplished it, even if they don't know it.
Basically, in a way, I'd have to say this is a very important soundtrack and it is not, by any means, a least favorite. It's one of my favorite parts of the movie, and I'd have to say it was one of the first soundtracks to an animated movie that made me realize animated movies didn't have to have silly music. There have been so many soundtracks both before and after to prove that idea wrong!