.com Prolific sci-fi author Isaac Asimov first penned the foundations of what would become one of his most acclaimed books in the 1940s eventually adapting I Robotto screenplay form in the 1970s. It would take Hollywood another three decades to hammer the author s vision into CGI-fueled would-be summer blockbuster -- yet give composer Marco Beltrami a little over two weeks to compose and record its score after the project s original scorer bowed out. Given such constraints it s no surprise to find the composer leaning on the same dynamically bi-polar orchestral/electro-metallic palate that colored his music for Terminator 3 with such broad sweeping strokes. What passes for melodic motif here (i.e. the main title s brief descending minor key riff) are largely beside the point Beltrami never gets the chance to do much other than build suspense via moody atmospherics or underlay the film s copious action with serviceable musical boilerplate. His Hellboy score is a better measure of Marco s true artistic range this one showcases the shrewd less-as-more constructs of a craftsman on a tight schedule. --Jerry McCulley