Though having scored over 40 films thus far, most of Beck's popularity extends back to his Emmy-winning music for the Buffy: The Vampire Slayer television series. Early in 2005, his score for the comic spin-off Elektra utilized significant electronic manipulation of a moderate orchestral ensemble, often twisting the traditional, familiar sounds with textures of abstract sound design. His reliance on the sound design continues in The Sentinel, with the intent of accentuating the highly technical nature of a secret service chase. Unfortunately, Beck dunks the score do deep into the barrel of sonic techno jargon that he completely loses the human element of the story. His 85-member ensemble lacks woodwinds, doubling up on the brass, and while the brass and percussion are evident throughout the score, the few appearances by the strings are often swallowed up by the harsh tones of the underlying rhythms or sound effects. In the most basic sense, this score succeeds in pace. But in his effort to punctuate the elements of surveillance and other gadgets, Beck creates a score that seems to come from Graeme Revell's (or half a dozen others') sound design library, with little originality defining this work. Each cue plays like it's simply a sample of the next synthetic rhythm in the library, as though Beck kept toggling down the list with indecision. A slight thematic base developed by brass in the opening cue is absent from most of these meandering cues of seemingly random samples (an exception is the more serviceable "No Second Shot").

Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of The Sentinel is that these rhythms don't have much in common, leaving no sound effect to even define the score. In most cases, these electronic samples are tolerable, though in a cue like "Garrison's Polygraph," the stuttering rhythm more closely resembles distortion than music, and while the concept of flunking a polygraph under intense circumstances certainly calls for tense music, degeneration to distortion is an unnecessary shortcut. On a larger level, the more interesting aspect of Beck's failure here is in the total lack of nobility in the score. There's nothing remotely presidential about this score; it's cold at every turn, distant in its emotions, and the film is far from that. For a thriller in outer space, Beck's score would be far more successful. But for a film with American flags throughout and the security of the world's most powerful man in doubt, there needs to be an ability for the score to transcend the dull synthetic realm of mundane B-rate horror thrillers. On occasion, such as in "City Hall," Beck employs a generic snare to represent the militaristic side of the presidency, though even this element is mixed with muted distance. Utilizing the synthetic rhythms isn't the downfall of Beck's score; in fact the film definitely needed that sophisticated identity. In a highly personal, human tale such as The Sentinel, however, Beck got carried away with his own ability to pump the movie full of sound design and neglected to internalize the larger emotions in the story. Without any vibrance whatsoever, an extended listening experience of The Sentinel on album (50+ minutes) offers nothing memorable. A significant disappointment.  *   @Amazon.com: CD or Download