Review Summary: A soundtrack to skip.
Harry Gregson-Williams is behind some truly memorable soundtracks: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, for example. He’s also engineered a host of generic soundtracks that do their part, but are forgotten in time. Infinite highlights the latter, with a soundtrack that is punchy on screen but less enjoyable by itself. The dynamics at play can be quite jarring when an ambient section turns into a cacophonous noise explosion, but not quite as emotionally stirring. The juxtaposition favours movie magic and gut reaction over composition.
Whatever world music influence is used is practically unnoticeable. Ironic considering the main character lives a plethora of lives throughout the film. The mark was missed there. Infinite brings loud beats, and even louder strings, and generically slammed percussion into a soundtrack fitting for a turn-off-your-brain movie. The sci-fi element is also not addressed well. Whereas the film Oblivion painted life to the movie via synthesizers, a similar effect is not done here. In short, there is no sense of the realness of the movie’s unique reality. It does not feed the captive audience’s escapism as is mandatory.
The personality of this soundtrack is action movie to a tee. It’s music that mimics the weight of punches and bullet showers, and music with designated sad, epic, and angry moments dished out systematically. It isn’t done well though, it’s simply movie music 101, void of any unique features. The music does not produce tears, it produces bombastic noise and calculated string moments not far off from a derivative Thor film. The heights and lows of the soundtrack are all the same, despite some decent dynamics. The rollercoaster leads to one forgettable string moment after the other. It is hardly near the capabilities of Harry-Gregson Williams, and bland in total.
