Product Description: A psychologist is sent to investigate a spate of deaths on a space station. Genre: Science Fiction Rating: PG13 Release Date: 9-JAN-2007 Media Type: DVD
Amazon.com: A curious mix of science fiction and metaphysical love story, Solaris centers around Chris Kelvin (George Clooney), a psychologist sent to investigate why a space station orbiting an alien planet has stopped communications. The planet has the power to delve into human psyches and re-create lost loved ones--in Kelvin's case, his dead wife (Natascha McElhone), whom he then wants to bring back to Earth. Director Steven Soderbergh (Traffic, Erin Brockovich) fills almost every shot with faces and bodies, as if to emphasize the human soul rather than outer space as the movie's true subject. Unfortunately, the vagueness of the environment--combined with a script that implies more than it shows--serves to dislocate our ability to engage with the characters, rendering Solaris emotionally inert. Jeremy Davies, as a lingering crew member, brings a hint of humor to the otherwise serious-minded proceedings. --Bret Fetzer
3.0 out of 5 stars A Plodding Mind Bender, March 10, 2010
Well...I didn't hate it. Exactly.
Solaris is a plodding mind-bender that will cause you to furrow your brow a dozen times throughout the film. I've watched it twice and am still not 100% sure of what just happened. I got the basics though -- a man goes to a space station that is situated outside a planet called Solaris. The planet seems to have cognizance and is sending 3-D visitors to the space station. Unlike the rest of the crew members, George Clooney's character 'likes' his visitor and after killing her a couple of times, regrets it, and wants her to stay.
I'll leave the ending up to you to interpret. No, I understand it. Mostly. Enjoy the movie but don't invest much money into it.
Oh-side note, the pacing of the movie is methodical, musical and ethereal and it made me think of Blade Runner.
Happy watching!
Ellen C Maze, author Rabbit: Chasing Beth Rider A New Kind of Vampire (Paperback and Kindle)
The review below ^ In case you couldn't tell, the review below by "a customer" is cut and pasted from Roger Eberts' website. Nice writing "customer," you the dude.
BOOORRING...NOT WORTH THE REDBOX$1 ^ i tried to see this movie years ago, it was sooo bad and slow and boring people were actually walking out of the theatre, you expect it to get better and it never does after 40 mins of PURE BOREDOM...i finally left. what was clooney thinking
Visually spectacular and it also makes you think ^ This is a movie that makes you think. Or, if you don't think (or don't want to think) much about what you're seeing, you probably won't enjoy it.
George Clooney goes out to a distant space station to find out what is going on with the crew after they send a mysterious message. It is a puzzle for both Clooney and the viewer to figure out just what is going on, so in some ways it resembles a crime story. Each of the crew faces their own personal demons as (it seems) some unknown force (or god?) plays mind tricks on them.
Along the way, the mysterious things that happen raise interesting metaphysical questions: Is a cloned person really a person? If you kill an exact copy of a person, did you really commit murder? Is it a gift or a torment for someone close to you in a troubled past to come back from the dead? (You are confronted with the troubles, but then again, maybe this time you can fix things.) Imagining yourself in Clooney's position, the situation brings out the deep mysteries of what it means to be alive, what identity means, what morality means.
While this could just make for a depressing movie, in fact by the end there is a kind of acceptance which proved (at least for me) to be spiritually uplifting. It also helps that the movie is visually beautiful (amazing dynamic and colorful shots of the nearby star, cool renditions of a space station) and that the sound track is sublime and mysterious itself.
This film is P...L...O...D...D...I...N...G...! ^ OK, let's get a few things straight. I like George Clooney, I like sci-fi, and I like psychological thrillers, but this film, I'm sad to say, never got rolling. I could sense some undercurrent similarities between Steven Soderberg's "Solaris" and James Cameron's "The Abyss" in general look and feel, but the story line of "Solaris" dragged like crazy for me.
The premis of astronaut/workers stranded on a space station far from home is intruiging, unexplainable events set the stage for the film, and possible interactions between humans and other intelligences in the universe also has appeal, but there was little to no synergism in the film. It never clicked for me. The characters were consistently emotionally distant from one another and from the viewer. Clooney's character showed the most development throughout the film, but that was not enough to save it for me. There were MANY questions that I wanted to have answered from the story line, but to have essentially none of them answered was a real let-down.
I wouldn't say that I hate this film - that is too strong a sentiment, but it feels like there is so little in this film that there is no reason to go back for a second helping of "Solaris."
I wanted to like it, but it just didn't work out that way.
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