Review of Solaris (Soderbergh)

Introduction

The promise of a sci-fi film billed as "the finest, and certainly the most stylish sci-fi film in years", directed by award winning director Steven Soderbergh, produced by the legendary James Cameron and starring George Clooney has a great deal of appeal, after all, Cameron has been involved in some of the best sci-fi movies of all time - Aliens, Terminator 1 and 2 and The Abyss whilst Soderbergh has proven that he can produce a stylish movie.

The film is an adaptation of Stanislaw Lem`s Solaris, already made into a film in 1972, and tells the story of the crew of a space station that is orbiting a strange planet which seems to be exposing the crew to very peculiar phenomenon. Ghosts and spirits from the crew`s past are mysteriously resurrected, and psychologist Chris Kelvin (played by Clooney) is sent in to investigate, unfortunately, he is immediately afflicted by the problem, as his past life comes back to haunt him.

Video

The video is presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen and as you might expect from a major Hollywood movie made last year, the picture quality is very good, with no sign of dirt on the print, although there is a slight grain evident in the blue/grey space station backgrounds.

Visually the film is very competent, with the space station exterior shots of particular note. These are often in the style of 2001 - long, slow pans that show off the station, although with today`s CGI creations, the technical achievement is not quite the same as the models used in the older movie. Similarly, the interior of the space station is quite convincing with realistic looking sets and plenty of detail.

The rest of the story is told via a number of flashbacks, again these are well filmed and are quite stylish at times.

Audio

The soundtrack is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1, and is not particularly impressive for the most part, with much of the movie taken up by dialogue that is delivered from the front centre channel only. There is some occasional music, which is not particular stirring, which is gently mixed throughout the available channels. This certainly isn`t a sci-fi movie to show off your expensive home cinema system.

Having said that, the dialogue is very clear and precise at all times, which of course is essential for a movie which relies so much on interaction between the various characters.

Features

Extra features include a commentary track; a twelve minute HBO special; a seventeen minute Behind the Planet featurette and the screenplay.

The commentary track features director Steven Soderbergh and James Cameron (and the box proudly proclaims that it`s Cameron`s first on DVD). The commentary track is very interesting indeed, and is well worth listening to - just being able to listen to James Cameron talking about making a sci-fi movie is good enough to hold my attention for an hour and a half.

The HBO Special is the usual promotional extended trailer with interviews which doesn`t really offer much insight into the film.

The Behind the Planet featurette is a more traditional making-of featurette, again with interviews, but offering some more interesting information about the making of the movie.

The screenplay is accessed using the next-frame button of the remote control and is very readable, although to be honest I had no interest in doing so!

Conclusion

Overall, despite being billed as "the finest, and certainly the most stylish sci-fi film in years", Solaris is ultimately an exceptionally tedious psychological thriller which fails to deliver thrills of any description. The film is a triumph of style over substance - it has plenty of the former and absolutely none of the latter.

The film`s crucial failing is that it is incredibly slow and ponderous, painfully so in fact, with no action, no tension and no drama. Much of the dialogue between Clooney and McElhone is highly monotonous and did little to add to the storyline, instead doing much to add to my drowsiness. To make matters worse, none of the cast deliver a riveting performance, which is essential to hold the viewer`s interest in a movie of this type. None of the cast seemed to put any effort into their roles, which went a long way to helping me not having any interest in the film.

The film`s setting in a space station is courtesy of it being a rehash of a much older film, but in truth, the space station could quite easily have been replaced with any number of other locations, as it is, the space station does little other than offer the special effects technicians an opportunity to show off their work with slow Kubrick style camera pans.

The film is well presented in terms of sound and video, and has competent extras, but at the end of the day, it`s very tedious indeed. On the plus side, the audio commentary track is FAR more interesting than the main feature, and if you want to hear James Cameron talking about film making, then the film might be worth renting out to watch with the commentary track on.

If you want to watch science fiction, buy something else. If you want to watch a tedious romantic drama, buy something else. In fact, buy something else, anything else.