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| Mothersbaugh |
The Lego Movie: (Mark Mothersbaugh) Nothing in the
universe is more therapeutic than sitting in front of a table with ten
thousand basic Lego bricks and creating a massive structure out of them
over a rainy afternoon. Something has been lost in the Lego phenomenon
over the years; what started as a bucket of bricks that spurred the
imagination of youths has morphed into a commercialized mess of ever
more complicated pieces and imitations of movie realms. The beauty of
the Lego truly exists in the form of a 2x4 brick. Given the evolution of
the Lego brand over the 2000's, however, especially with its video
games, it is somewhat surprising that there wasn't an equally
commercialized animated Lego movie prior to 2014, when
The Lego
Movie hit the theatres with such enormous success that it led the
yearly box office charts for quite some time. The premise of the movie
will appeal to adults, the subversive commentary about the nature of the
brand forcing one Lego mini-figure to save his universe from the evils
of the larger business. Along his violent, sexualized journey are
innumerous cameos by many of the characters and settings licensed by
Lego in recent years, allowing a bizarre overlap of cinematic franchises
not possible in such explicit reference anywhere else. Hundreds of
millions of dollars of profit for the combination of studios behind
The Lego Movie caused lead distributor Warner Brothers to
immediately green-light a sequel while removing the other studios from
the equation to reap the future benefits of the franchise solely for
themselves. The soundtrack for
The Lego Movie is highly stylized
beyond your typical parody comedy effort, veteran genre composer Mark
Mothersbaugh choosing a very uniquely rendered throwback of disparate
musical genres for the occasion. The admittedly weird Mothersbaugh,
often bug-eyed and wearing a strange apparatus on his head, has produced
the wacky but effective music for a range of genre favorites, including
the "Rugrats" television series,
Cloudy With a Chance of
Meatballs,
Hotel Transylvania, and
The Adventures of Rocky
and Bullwinkle. He often differs from other composers making a
living off of silly comedies (whether in the children's genre or
otherwise) due to his unashamed tendency to launch into the realm of the
musical bizarre. The typical parody score that one might think
appropriate for an assignment such as
The Lego Movie would be a
completely serious recording. Mothersbaugh had other ideas.
Whereas composers such as Christopher Lennertz or
Theodore Shapiro would likely use the same musical ingredients to
produce a robust parody score for
The Lego Movie to emphasize the
discord between Legoland and reality on screen, Mothersbaugh
intentionally makes his music as ridiculous as possible in most
passages. He takes the same general route selected by Henry Jackman a
few years prior for
Wreck-It Ralph, which means that
The Lego
Movie is an homage to the 1980's era of synthetic arcade music in a
constant battle with the orchestral and choral gravity that the action
in the plotline demands. The problem that Mothersbaugh faces in
The
Lego Movie, unfortunately, is that his choices are almost completely
insufferable in their personality as rendered. While a score such as
Wreck-It Ralph allows for your admiration of its intent,
The
Lego Movie leaves you wishing to slaughter the nearest available
Lego mini-figure. The utilization of electronic sound effects and
hyperactive dance-informed movement in this score, merged with the
shallow, 1980's arcade enthusiasm, is death to this music's
listenability on album. The composer seems to have sought out every
electricity and pulse tone sound effect in existence and manipulated
them with glee for this score, the old-time synthesizer tones on top of
them so horrendously mixed with loud gains at the forefront of most cues
that it will be horribly challenging for some listeners to survive the
album experience. The orchestral and choral backing exists with the
rather meager depth you'd expect from some of David Newman's lesser
recordings, and only in the final two cues (amounting to about six
minutes in length) do you receive satisfyingly harmonic statements of
emotional motifs from the organic ensemble that will be worth your time.
It should be said, though, that there is quite a healthy dose of
intelligence behind the score and its related song, "Everything is
Awesome." That dance song is so heinously obnoxious that it makes you
wish not to have children, but its lyrics are remarkably intelligent and
Mothersbaugh's interpolation of its melody into the score is adept. He
also throws in a nice anthem for the main mini-figure, though don't
expect many listenable renditions. Finally, behold a frightfully
distressing, self-loathing song for the Batman character. Overall, a cue
such as the triumphant "I Am a Master Builder" sums up just how awful
this score can be. Rarely are comedy and parody efforts so intolerable,
but that's the point of the score and Mothersbaugh can't be flunked for
taking the music in that direction. You'll simply need to retreat to
your stash of old 2x4 bricks for some quiet therapy afterwards.
** @Amazon.com: CD or
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The insert includes no extra information about the score or film.
