Audiences polled by the market research firm CinemaScore gave "Epic" an "A" grade on average and an "A+" among kids. Stephan Lee of "Entertainment Weekly" gave the film a B+, saying "The story lacks the specialness of a Pixar movie—it retreads the same eco-battle archetypes as "" and "Avatar—"but it's a perfectly appealing explosion of color for a lazy summer day." Michael Rechtshaffen of "The Hollywood Reporter" gave the film a mixed review, saying "Where the animated film comes up short is on the inspiration front—despite the intriguing terrain, its stock inhabitants lack the sort of unique personality traits that would prevent them from feeling overly familiar." Michael Phillips of the "Chicago Tribune" gave the film two stars, saying "It's difficult to keep its story and characters, or even its visual design, in your mind's eye, in part because the five credited screenwriters overload the narrative with incident and threatening complication." Kyle Smith of the "New York Post" gave the film one-and-a-half stars out of four, saying "It’s not that the plot of "Epic" is complex; it’s just untidy. There’s a lot going on that goes nowhere." Moira Macdonald of "The Seattle Times" gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four, saying "The story's simple enough to appeal to young kids (the 8-year-old with me pronounced the movie "awesome"), but adults will enjoy the beautiful animation, whether 3D or 2D." Stephen Holden of "The New York Times" gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of five, saying "As beautiful as it is, "Epic" is fatally lacking in visceral momentum and dramatic edge." "Epic" was released on DVD, Blu-ray and Blu-ray 3D on August 20, 2013. Danny Elfman composed the original music for the film, which was released on May 28, 2013 by Sony Classics. Beyoncé performed and co-wrote with Sia an original song, titled "Rise Up." The song was released as a digital single and as part of the digital version of the soundtrack. This is the first time that a film produced by Blue Sky Studios has not been scored by John Powell since the first "Ice Age" installment, which was composed by David Newman.