PRINTER FRIENDLY VIEW
(inverts site colors)

Willis' score for M3GAN is a fascinating and engrossing listening experience with some truly impressive moments, but it's the kind of work you won't find yourself compelled to revisit apart from the picture. The recording is largely organic, but a fair amount of it sounds digitally processed, with synthetics factoring more and more as the killer robot takes over the story. Willis carries the primary motif with a blend of traditional piano and what sounds like a vibraphone used to sound like synth keyboarding, the latter tones seemingly supplanting the piano in the latter half. Many of the early cues are vaguely positive in tone, and the material for the Bruce robot is borderline charming. Willis has a knack for writing superior string lines, and these techniques offer the appeal of these more tonal or lightly suspenseful passages. The horror elements in the score are functional but tiring, sounding like Benjamin Wallfisch synthetic shrieking with conventional stingers. The ambient synths and then striking dissonance of "She's Still Plugged In" is truly unlistenable, and nice brass lines late in "Workshop Duel" are wasted by obnoxiously wild string lines. The climax improves, though, as symphonic action without synth interference becomes more tonal in "Two Titans" and entertaining, advanced string and brass techniques for horror triumph in "Model 3 Generative AN-droid." The narrative of the score dwells upon one central motif, but the secondary ideas overshadow it in memorability. By the director's insistence, there is a fluffy and airy, faux-innocent side to the score that inhabits one subtheme and the related "The Perfect Algorithm," and he and the composer called this the "Disney" side of the soundtrack. The titular robot sings two songs in M3GAN as part of its increasing self-awareness, the aspiring princess tone of these songs meant to sound both innocently childlike and sickeningly scary. These two songs, "Tell Me Your Dreams" and "Titanium," are by far the most memorable aspects of the soundtrack, and yet they are both incredibly short. Willis only wrote parts of songs for these two performances, and the melody deconstructions are not obvious enough in the rest of the score to be truly satisfying. Ideally, he would have created fuller versions of these songs as either source or end credits pieces, because otherwise they are simply teases without a poignant punchline at the end.

Defining the melodic core of M3GAN is a main theme representing the concepts of life and death, though mostly the latter. It's a rather unattractive series of descending three notes, off kilter over shifting harmonies but occasionally striving for tonal appeal. The composer naturally chose three notes for the phrases because of "3" in the robot's name. This death theme debuts at 0:16 into "A Message From Oregon" on uneasy piano over string suspense and dominates the cue, subsequently meandering late in "Those Aren't Toys." It returns at 0:06 into "On the Subject of Death" on piano with fantasy female vocals above, building momentum and a slight sense of menace as the realization experienced by the android progresses. The theme is tentative in the middle of "Calibrated Response" on glassy tones, menacing at the start of "Bully in the Forest" on the female voice, and turns to action mode on brass and slamming percussion at 1:59 into "Bad Boys Equal Bad Men." Taunting fantasy vocals take it at the beginning of "Angel of Death," and what sounds like a vibraphone carries the theme through the rest of the cue. Tentative strings explore the death theme at 0:38 into "Approximately 5 Feet Deep," shifting to brass action at 1:43 in stalker/killer mode. It is fragmented early on low strings in "Detectives & Missing Data Reports," consolidating to the keyboard or vibraphone later in the cue, and returns after the action at 0:14 into "A Message From Elsie" with compelling lyricism. The keyboard/vibraphone tones recur at 0:30 into "Life & Death (Suite From M3GAN)" with the female vocals on top once again; the voice steals the theme in the middle of the cue, aided by tense string echoes, but Willis returns it to the keyboard at the end. In the bonus track, "Bruce's Dream," the death theme is a little warmer near the cue's conclusion and leaves the album on a fleetingly upbeat note compared to the prior material. This theme doesn't explode into as much of the action music as hoped, Willis seemingly content to meander in different directions during some of the actual fight scenes. Rather, the theme seems most at home in the subtly alluring but undeniably creepy "On the Subject of Death," which ultimately highlights the score and emulates some of the more effective John Ottman genre works of the 2000's. Scores like Hide and Seek and Orphan provide a blueprint for Willis in how he textures his theme for this score, with about equal results.

The two mini-songs in M3GAN are definitely highlights, and they're actually quite funny and creative, but they're also too short to help the soundtrack overall, especially on album. The "Tell Me Your Dreams" theme borrows alternating note figures from James Horner's "Somewhere Out There" in An American Tail and is keyboarded early in "Tell Me Your Dreams" and then sung as a children's lullaby. The "Disney-like" flourishes will induce a smirk, but the song passes quickly. Its melody is shifted to suspense at the start of "Attachment Theory," and the alternating note figures take a dark position in the middle of "Departing Funki" before it sounds like both songs' melodies attempt unsuccessfully to break through early in "Megan's Fantasy." That other song is the highly alluring and increasingly confident "Titanium," its melody aspiring to pop song mannerisms with a lovely secondary sequence. It's also far too brief by design, but its melody does inform the brass malice early in "Two Titans" though in barely recognizable form, finally emerging for a clearer moment on flute at 2:01. That theme also opens "A Message From Elsie" tentatively. The score has a couple of other themes, both related to the robot technology and supplying the lighter, almost comedic shades to the experience. The theme for the Bruce robot is benevolent and a bit wondrous, the tonal highlight of the score and heard in "Meeting Bruce" and "Bruce's Dream." This idea carries over to the start of "The Perfect Algorithm" in fragments but unfortunately doesn't clearly translate into the action music for the climactic duel between Bruce and M3GAN. More overtly eye-rolling is the lounge-appropriate, vintage light rock of the corporation that creates these robots in "Funki Headquarters" and "Funki Redux." This material is also alluded to at the start of "Life & Death (Suite From M3GAN)." Ultimately, the soundtrack for M3GAN is a worthy fantasy thriller venture with some rousingly intriguing ideas. The two songs are far too brief, and their melodies don't inform the surrounding score as clearly as necessary. The remainder of the score provides soothingly appreciable material in its first half and some wretch horror passages prior to brief glimpses of symphonic force for the final fight. Willis shows tremendous potential in his instrumental and vocal handling, and while the rather soulless end result for M3GAN may turn off plenty of score collectors, there's much to like in the constructs and execution. That is, until the nasty android decides to kill something, at which point your ears will beg for forgiveness.  ***   @Amazon.com: CD or Download

Total Time: 62:18