Too many fans seem to be blown away

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

Solaris is an effort by director Steven Soderberg to bring to the screen one of the greatest science fiction novels ever- Stanislaw Lem's Solaris. Comparisons with Tarkovskys film will be expected but both are quite apart in tone and approach. Soderberg's film is more mainstream and thus much more colorful. I'll give him this: His pictures are gorgeous to look at. George Clooney plays astronaut Chris Kelvin who is summoned on a space station floating around the mysterious planet Solaris. When he arrives he sees not all is right and that the planet is playing mind games on the inhabitants of the ship. This is a good film and you should check it out.

Steven Soderbergh is the second great director to film an adaptation of the highly acclaimed novel by Stanislaw Lem. The late great Soviet director Andrei Tarkovsky made the first version of the film in 1972. This version is written, directed, photographed, and edited by the rising star Steven Soderbergh. Astute observers of cinema will recognize Soderbergh as the director who had two films nominated for best picture in the same year (Erin Brockovich and Traffic). From the previews one might expect a sci-fi space film in the tradition of 2001: A Space Odyssey. This film is actually better seen as a film about the landscape of the mind that happens to be set in outer space. George Clooney plays a psychiatrist and widower who attempts to deal with his grief by burying himself in his work. He is called away from his routine when he is asked to investigate a crisis in outer space. Two astronauts have died, and the survivors have sent back messages that are mysterious and a little scary. The psychiatrist is dispatched to solve the mystery and fix the crisis.Here he encounters an astronaut known as Snow, a delightful character full of quirks and tics. It took me a while to place the actor, but I finally recognized him as Jeremy Davies, the actor who played Corporal Upham in Saving Private Ryan. Davies gives one of the great supporting performances in the film, but the real sizzle in the acting department comes from Clooney and Natascha McElhone, the actress who plays Clooney's dead wife.Playing a dead wife might not seem especially challenging but therein lies the rub. When Clooney awakens after his first night on the spaceship, he discovers a live version of his wife in bed right next to him. Clooney soon discovers that the two surviving astronauts in the spaceship have had similar experiences. People go to bed and wake to find people that they have lost and long to see, next to them in bed.What we have told to this point could almost be gleaned from the previews. To tell more of the plot is to spoil the suspense that is an important part of the experience. If the viewer choosing this film is looking for an extraterrestrial shoot-em'-up he or she will be sorely disappointed. As a love story and psychological thriller, Solaris works quite well and Soderbergh solidifies his status as one of the great directors working in film.

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.

This movie starts out interesting, but pretty soon it becomes silly, and much more fantasy than sci-fi. The acting is so-so. The script is often stupid/awkward, but sometimes poetic (in a good way). The characters aren't introduced much, and seem unfamiliar and hard to associate with. The movie generally doesn't evoke much emotion, except a few times, mostly because it so often induces disbelief. Certain camera shots (like seeing a character's face) feel unnecessarily long without adding substance, and at the same time, some story aspects are underdeveloped. There is no explanation for how clones of specific dead humans, with their memories, appear out of nowhere. The crew members are certain, by unknown reasons, that it's the planet below that creates them. Of course. And they are not unusually perplexed, amazed or in disbelief. The whole movie feels shallow because of this unrealism. It would have been potentially interesting to learn more about the planet Solaris.Also, more could have been done out of the main character's approach to Solaris. More emotion.At one point the characters discuss how the "visitors" are built. One of the crew members comes up with what is supposed to be a wild guess, the other one programs a particle accelerator (how come they have one on the ship to begin with?) based on that guess, and it just happens to be correct. And again, no questions asked and no explanations. There are multiple such ignored bits in this movie.The mentioned physics is bad too. Bosons do not have anti-particles, and the Higgs field gives *everything* mass, and exists everywhere. Although the Higgs was not yet experimentally confirmed by the time this movie was made, this has been theorised for some time. It would only take a simple internet search.However, the movie has some good aspects too. The visuals are beautiful. There is some really aesthetic lightning and scenery. The planet Solaris looks fascinating, and there are some nice shots of it. There are a few good story elements about love and regret, and the occasional emotional atmosphere. Background music is fitting.