Del (voiced by Daniel Nieden) is a songwriter searching for inspiration, especially because if he doesn't find any soon, his boss Mr. Mega (voiced by Marty Nelson), of Mega Music, is going to fire him. On his way to the Mega Music office, he takes a wrong turn and ends up in a song-filled land that just might provide a muse.
The most frustrating aspect of The Tune is that it easily has the potential to be a 10. The animation is charming and effective, with absorbing surrealistic touches. Writer/director Bill Plympton (along with writers Maureen McElheron and P.C. Vey) has a knack for crafting a disarmingly simple but twisted fantasy tale. However, my initial enthusiasm was brought down a few notches by the songs. And as this is basically an animated musical, if there is a problem with the music, it seriously affects the film.
It's not that the music is bad, although some of the recordings of music are bad from an engineering perspective. Rather, for a work that's otherwise so imaginative--visually and plot-wise--the music and most of the lyrics are boilerplate. The music is like a survey of generic, older pop styles (tin pan alley jazz, 70s country, rockabilly, blues, and so on). It reminded me of a cross between those "rhythm accompaniment" presets on older Casio keyboards and an audition tape for a cruise ship musician (the latter, because quite a few songs had decent guitar work on top of otherwise formulaic music). When everything else about the film is so creative and rule breaking, I want music that's creative and rule breaking, too. Most of the songs follow the same structural formula, and at their worst, slow the film down because they feel like padding.
Still, Plympton and his animation crew frequently come to the rescue during the songs with excellent visuals--the hotel manager's song and the surf/dance song particularly stand out in my mind. The Tune is definitely worth viewing, and I can't wait to see more of Plympton's work. I would just like to see him paired with a composer who is as inventive aurally as he is visually.
A 7 out of 10 from me.
