Search - John Debney, Hollywood Studio Symphony :: The Ant Bully (Score)

Though it accompanies an animated kids' movie, this score is pretty feisty: There's relatively few saccharine or cute moments, and plenty of large-scale actiony cues, like the oddly Star Wars-esque "Destroyer" or the feverish "Colony Floods" and "Wasp Attack." Okay, so this means no catchy theme song on the CD, and no snippets of dialogue either, making the listening experience perhaps a little, er, off-putting for children. Grownup fans of orchestral works, on the other hand, will be treated to one of John Debney's most mature scores--perhaps this is how a composer who seems to specialize in kids' and family-friendly movies gets his creative juices flowing. "Frog Attack," for instance, would not be out of place in a big-budget Hollywood disaster movie, while "Zac and Lucas" is as close as Debney gets to a sugary feel-good moment. --Elisabeth Vincentelli