Solaris (2002)

Once again we have people complaining about their boredom. It's so slow. A true psychological drama may appear slow because the person watching has such a short attention span and a limited world view. There, I've said it, Mister 1 out of 10. I prefer the Russian version of this book by Stanislaw Lem, but this is a worthy interpretation. The planet Solaris has an affect on anyone that approaches it. It is a sentient organism and so it isn't there to be exploited; it's there to protect itself. When George Clooney's character is called to investigate the goings on at a space station that has been set up to investigate access to a water planet, he walks into a surreal mass of images and tricks. Something is causing personages to appear on board the space station. A child who should not be there runs down a hallway. People are committing suicide or running away, frightened or overwhelmed by emotions. Clooney, despite being a rock, still succumbs to the planet's trickery because of his great love for his lost wife. I often like to look to movies for an intellectual challenge. It doesn't always work, but there are few that don't offer something to think about.

Yes. I mean that. Viewers want to see explosions, murder and mayhem. Not unanswered questions and thought experiments. This movie will give you plenty of those. A typical quote from the movie is "There are no answers. Only choices." Now how many of us have the patience to think about that one? This movie challenges us to sit still for a minute and really listen to what the characters are saying and what it could possibly mean. I thought the acting was excellent given the complexity of what Stanislaw Lem was trying to convey. If he was trying to convey existential crisis, I think the movie succeeds. I loved the touch of making one of the scientists a strong black woman. I watched the original Russian version (1972) before trying to digest the newer one. The newer one resonated with me more. Perhaps because it is more current - perhaps because the in Russian version I had more trouble understanding the timelines and how they fit it - until the end. In the American movie, the timelines make more sense but there is no twist at the end. The last few minutes become predictable. I also found the Russian version much more difficult to relate to emotionally though. I don't know how either movie compares to the book, but that will be my next stop.

Chris Kelvin (George Clooney) is approached to join a crew on board a space station. The crew are studying a phenomenon known as Solaris and Kelvin is asked to join the remaining crew members to discover what is going on there and also to recover the remaining crew members - only two crew members remain on the space station as the other members of the crew have either committed suicide or simply disappeared - this includes the Security Task Force who were originally assigned to the task. What seems like a seemingly ordinary task for Kelvin soon proves difficult when he witnesses the phenomena of Solaris first-hand.Solaris markets itself as a film full of intrigue and mystery, but the reality here is that it isn't really any of these things. Here are some of the problems;For a start, all the characters are bland here with Doctor Snow starting every sentence with the words 'Hmmm' 'Yeah' 'Well' 'Hey'. He never has anything interesting or useful to say (although him being part of Solaris all along does explain why), but even so as a character he annoyed the hell out of me - he both sounded and looked like a stoner. Doctor Gordon was given very little screen time and as a result made very little impact on the film. Clooney and McElhone were sleepwalking through the film most of the time, but I think this was due to the dull script which clearly limited their performances. The dialogue was also dull and rather meaningless for the most part.The bulk of the film revolves around Kelvin and his wife Rheya (Natascha McElhone). The film flits between his memories of their time together and his existence with a carbon copy of his wife that has been created by Solaris. This could potentially have been interesting, but Soderbergh seemed more pre-occupied with giving the film long silly dream sequences which often contain little narrative content meaning that the film often seems pretentious rather than insightful or interesting. Another thing that angered me about the film is the sheer arrogance of the whole thing; I got the impression that Soderbergh genuinely believes that he's actually made something clever and thought-provoking when in reality that just isn't the case. I suppose the only thing that can really be taken away from this is that it asks the question 'If you had another chance to go back and put things right would you do it?', but this whole concept is tackled in such a boring manner that I just didn't really care by the end.It's no surprise that the critics mostly gushed over this as it's the sort of film that they can claim that they get because it's deep and meaningful and intelligent and that if you're thick you won't get it. All I'll say is that I did understand what the film was trying to say, but still thought that it was a pretentious load of baloney.

One of the most boring movies I've ever tried to watch. I initially put it on mid-afternoon one day and found myself asleep within 17 minutes. In fact, it was so tedious and exhausting that I slept for the next 12 hours straight and still I awoke feeling groggy and disoriented. I tried watching it again the next day and was unable to pay attention to the story or the characters. That's the key problem of this film, the entire cast could suddenly die and it still wouldn't matter. It's just a horribly boring film with boring, undeveloped characters and nothing going on. I made it about 40 minutes through and then had to turn it off.