The Incredibles

The composer for this score is Michael Giacchino, composer of the hit TV shows "Alias" and "Lost." This is his very first score for a feature film, and unless his career takes a different trajectory, my guess is that he is going to be around as a major Hollywood composer for quite some time.

The score is reminiscent -- for reasons made clear in director Brad Bird's CD liner notes -- of '60s-era spy music in general, and of John Barry's classic James Bond scores in particular. Giacchino isn't just ripping off that sound, however; he's actually composed a score that sounds like it could have been from that era. It's a better Barry pastiche even than David Arnold's work on "Tomorrow Never Dies," and count my vote for Giacchino scoring the next 007 flick.

The entire album is good, but the highlight is undoubtedly the final track, "The Incredits," a seven-minute summation of the score's major themes. It was hardly an obvious choice to turn to '60s nostalgia for a modern superhero score, but the choice seems obvious in retrospect. It certainly works like a charm in the movie.

A final note: the score was performed live, meaning that all the musicians were together in the studio and playing at the same time. There is no overlaying of sounds thanks to digital technology, and that acoustic sort of quality may be a large factor in the immense charm of this album.

Highly recommended.

"The Incredibles" is far and away Pixar's most exciting dfeature, and this first-class score follows suit. Director Brad Bird is obviously a major fan of '50s and '60s sci-fi/spy/caper movies, and brought in a most impressive talent for the musical chores. Michael Giacchino is a new name to me, but the South Jersey native has scored both quirky TV adventures ("Lost",

"Alias") and military-themed video games ("Medal of Honor"). This is his first major movie score, and it's a killer. From the horn-heavy main theme, which conjures up Lalo Schifrin's brassy, high-energy music from "Mission: Impossible" and "Mannix", to a nifty bit of Mancini-esque lounge jazz heard as we watch Bob Parr work out, Giacchino blends the styles of at least half a dozen classic movie composers- John Barry's obvious, but there just might be a little Bernstein (Leonard and Elmer) too- into his own. I think he deserved an Oscar nomination- given the low-key winner in this category ("Finding Neverland"), he just might have won it.

The production, too, is fantastic, especially considering that this was an animated movie. With an orchestrator/conductor from the Seattle Symphony, a full 50-to-60-piece orchestra in

"all-live" mode (no synths here, and he's proud of it), and even a 70-something engineer who used '60s-style, reel-to-reel equipment- you can see how it was done on "The Incredibles" DVD-

this score has the brightness and immediacy that really makes it work. Giacchino may be young, but he looks and sounds tickled to death that he was able to create and oversee a score recorded, in his words, "the right way- the way I heard all that great movie music as a kid."

I've watched the movie several times over and always note how great, and distinctive, the score is. It should be great to hear on its own as well- I, for one, would love to check out that Mancini-style track as well as the powerhouse horns on the opening and from sequences like Dash-in-the-jungle.

"The Incredibles" is not only a true animated masterpiece- and a damned good superhero caper- but marks the arrival of Michael Giacchino as, just maybe, the best young movie/TV composer of the new decade. Highly recommended.

The composer of this soundtrack, Michael Giacchino, has stated that he wanted a score reminiscent of the spy genre during the sixties. He's done an an amazing job, harkening much of the score to John Barry's atmospheric, thrilling music for the Sean Connery-era James Bond series. Giacchino is also, evidently, a fan of Lalo Schiffrin and others who scored music for such films and TV series as "Our Man Flint", "The Avengers", "The Man From U.N.C.L.E.", "Mission Impossible", "The Persueders", "Amos Burke, Secret Agent" and the Matt Helm movies. Well done!