Buy it... only if you already suspect that you'd have a high tolerance for that catchy "Go, Gadget, Go!" attitude, so perfectly captured and adapted by John Debney into one of his typically hyperactive parody scores.

Avoid it... if the phrase "Go go Debney score!" confuses more than it entertains.

Debney

Inspector Gadget: (John Debney) Among Walt Disney's Pictures' most disastrous attempts to resurrect an old cartoon into a cash cow, 1999's Inspector Gadget was so heinous that the studio cut many of the scenes shown in the trailers from the finished product. By the time Disney was done cutting the fat from David Kellogg's dismal product, the film ran only an hour and fifteen minutes. And even at that, Inspector Gadget only served to bore children or irritate young adults who still held some fondness for the popular 1980's cartoon. Matthew Broderick's portrayal of John Brown and the evil clone of the Inspector was wooden and Rupert Everett's problem as Mr. Claw was the simple fact that he broke the primary rule of the cartoon by showing his face. The one person who never seems to be bothered by such technicalities of authenticity is composer John Debney, who by 1999 was becoming a regular Disney composer and, more often than not, found himself writing large-scale scores for films of exactly this quality. His enthusiasm for seemingly any project would cause him to launch himself at Inspector Gadget with "Go-go-Debney-score!" attitude. And you can clearly hear it. Debney pours significant energy and creativity into this score, utilizing his full ensemble and a witty collection of percussion to accompany the wretched action on the screen with devilishly immense constructs. His music is heavily rooted in the original "Inspector Gadget" theme, with the score as a whole serving as one of the more satisfying adaptations of a cartoon theme in recent memory. From this theme, Debney adapts significant parody techniques from his just previous My Favorite Martian and replaces the other-worldly electric guitars and other synth effects with a with percussion section meant to represent the many robotic parts of the reconstructed character. You can't go wrong with a little Korngold tribute here and there for the villain, either. The parody elements are far more utilized in this work, with a wider selection of rhythmic devices meant to more overtly convey humor. As a result of this absolute barrage of wild pacing shifts and bizarre instrumental solos, Inspector Gadget is easily a score that could make you pull out your remaining hair.

	Learn about supporting Filmtracks

While there are several recurring motifs, the main Inspector Gadget theme dominates. This theme, with its "Inspector Gadget" and "Go, Gadget, Go" female vocals, is the ultimate in cheesiness and funk, destined to get stuck in your head at some point. At three points during the score do these exclaiming female vocals appear with the theme in full; the very last track contains the theme in its complete original form. Debney takes a little bit of liberty with the theme in his opening title cue, though most people won't recognize the difference, and slighter references are made to it in the short "The Operation" cue. Instrumentally, the title theme is present throughout the entire score, receiving some truly interesting interpretations. Its Georges Delerue treatment for "Tango" is one of many unlikely adaptations from nearly every type of rhythmic movement. The "Battle on the Bridge" cue is an absolute riot. Even moreso than in My Favorite Martian, Debney incorporates little snippets from other famous themes and motifs for short comical or character cues in the film. In this case, "Heroic Mission" takes pieces from Mission: Impossible, Back to the Future, and the James Bond films and rolls them over into a slightly less obvious parody of Superman in subsequent action cues. Pieces of Danny Elfman's Beetlejuice main title are unintentionally connected to the title theme here due to some similarities in construct. The Disney logo music ("When You Wish Upon a Star") is incorporated directly into the opening performance of the title theme. Aside from these usages, the Inspector Gadget score offers the usual feel-good Debney hero's theme and a slight, rolling piano theme for the love interest, both quite adeptly combined into "Happy Ending." Overall, though, these thematic ideas are not as well integrated into the score as those in My Favorite Martian were, and this score thus relies far more heavily on the title theme. It's not as easy to enjoy as one cohesive sitting, though a good argument could probably be made in favor of Inspector Gadget over My Favorite Martian if someone were actually willing to overanalyze either. Like the previous score, Inspector Gadget was only available on a lengthy promotional album, and Debney's enthusiasm for these zany projects is perfectly captured in the picture of him decked out in an inspector's outfit on the back cover of the album. ***   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download

Bias Check:

For John Debney reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.23 (in 49 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.01 (in 42,775 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.