Review: Solaris (2002)

SOLARIS
Rating: 1 out of 5

REVIEW BY JOHN ULMER

I don't think anyone can say that Steven Soderbergh hasn't broadened his 
range of directorial efforts. We've had horror ("Out of Sight"), drama 
("Erin Brockovich"), gritty realism ("Traffic"), comedy ("Ocean's Eleven"), 
and now romance in "Solaris," a film that blew me out of the water - in 
terms of I was so surprised it sucked.

I think this may be the very first film that Steven Soderbergh made that is 
bad - followed by that stinky "Collinwood" movie. It is a nod towards 
Stanley Kubrick, but most of the film - especially sequences like the 
docking ship - just seem like hopeless rip-offs. James Cameron was 
originally going to write and direct this film, but then Soderbergh jumped 
on board so Cameron produced it. I wish they had let him write and direct 
it. Not only would it have been much more...hmm...how should I put 
it...INTERESTING, it would also be about ten times more meaningful than this 
sorry mess.

The film (based upon a novel and previous film titled "Solaryis") takes 
place sometime in the future, when a pshrink named Chris Klein (George 
Clooney) is sent to a space station on the planet Solaris to rescue a crew 
of space explorers. Once there, he realizes why no one wants to leave. 
Chris' dead wife comes back to him in the space station - she looks real, 
she feels real, she acts real - but she is undoubtedly an image from his 
memory, extracted by the mysterious planet.

Soon he realizes that he cannot take her back to earth, and he must cope 
with the fact that she must be destroyed. But she seems so real he refuses 
to do so. Oh my, the suspense, the suspense.

What an intriguing idea we have, completely wasted with an incompetent 
script and style of direction. The characters act weird throughout. For 
example, when Chris first arrives at the space station and finds people 
dead, he also finds a survivor named Snow. Chris doesn't seem to ask many 
questions. He asks what happened, and the Snow character (who is also very 
weird) doesn't answer correctly. Chris just kind of walks away, and finds 
another survivor. Once again, he gets no answers. So what does he do? He 
goes to sleep.

Everyone in this movie just acts weird. I can't describe it in words - they 
just don't act right. Even the humans. This may very well be George 
Clooney's most washed-out performance to date.

And the actor who played Snow, Jeremy Davies, is one of the worst actors I 
have ever seen. He plays the exact same characters (notice the similarities 
to his character in "The Million Dollar Hotel" to his character in 
"Solaris"). In fact, "Solaris" is a lot like "The Million Dollar Hotel." I 
hated that movie with a personal vengeance.

On the DVD commentary track for "Solaris," James Cameron said, "If I had 
made it there would be a lot more car chases, more gunfights." Quite 
honestly, I wish there were. Cameron would have made this film interesting, 
with or without violence and extravagant special effects, even. Soderbergh 
simply makes a melodramatic snoozer that is as boring as it is odd and 
ridiculous.

Copyright, 2003, John Ulmer

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X-Language: en
X-RT-ReviewID: 1188683
X-RT-TitleID: 1118327
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X-RT-AuthorID: 6769
X-RT-RatingText: 1/5