A gathering of geniuses: Stanislaw Lem, Andrei Tarkovsky, Steven Soderbergh and James Cameron. Although I admire Tarkovsky, Soderbergh and Cameron have made a film that is better than the original and that is almost a miracle. Everything here is perfect - I consider this film the best work of Soderbergh and Cameron and I doubt they will surpass what they did here in the future. Tarkovsky is not capable of making a bad film so imagine how hard it is to surpass him - and that has happened here.

The good thing about SOLARIS is that it's a darned sight better than the OVERLONG Russian original – a four hour film in which three things happened. Steven Soderbergh's remake shaves away half the running time and focuses more on the emotional aspects of the story, and as such is by far the better film. It's gorgeous to look at, bringing to life a beautiful view of space travel and existence, and full of the director's trademark stylish flourishes. Essentially, this is a two-hander between George Clooney and Natasha McElhone, two extremely handsome actors who are accomplished performers to boot. I couldn't think of a better cast.The film delivers an eerie atmosphere despite not a lot happening. It's definitely a mood piece. The romantic scenes between Clooney and McElhone feel authentic, and the many flashback scenes are pretty moving. This is a film that explores all the aspects of the human psyche: love, lust, withdrawal, madness, acceptance, suicidal tendencies, and more. Clooney is great, but McElhone is even better, playing a flawed and sometimes frightening woman. The sci-fi trappings are kept to a minimum, which is good, and the supporting cast members are also particularly fine – most notable is Jeremy Davies in a role just as kooky as the one he took in RESCUE DAWN. I liked this film, but I didn't find it particularly enjoyable. It goes on a journey of the human soul so to speak, but I wasn't left with much in the way of insight afterwards; I didn't feel that it had developed the characters very much. Still, it's worth a watch for fans of this stuff.

I have both this and Tarkovsky's version of Stanislaw Lem's novel. I found both of them to be somewhat of a trial, although for slightly different reasons. Both are slow, and unless you are easily confused and generally clueless, they don't actually have much of a mystery to them because the secret of the "mystery" is kind of obvious very early on. Where this one fails compared to the 1972 version is that the science fiction is merely a shallow vehicle for a rather stodgy and slow treatment of a doomed romance. There's no actual science in the story at all. It's full of rather obvious logical flaws which distract from the story. There's also little to no science fiction in this version, since it revolves almost entirely about a lonely man's inability to deal with the loss of the difficult and rather fay woman he loved; the science fiction, such as it is, merely provides a pretty backdrop and an excuse for a series of dull flashbacks to the highlights of their relationship. Where the modern remake scores over Tarkovsky's film is that it's about an hour shorter, which means you can get it over and done with that much quicker. On the balance I found the modern take to be more accessible, the only problem being the lack of interest in what you are able to access.To sum up: if you're a science fiction fan rather than a fan of romantic drama, don't bother. If you're a fan of slow, dense, intense romantic dramas with troubled characters who sit staring into space for unreasonable amounts of time, and with stories which have pretensions of being intellectual, then you will probably enjoy this.The seven points I'm giving it are for a good cast who put in decent performances despite the stodgy material, and for fairly decent production values. I feel like I'm being overly generous and it actually doesn't deserve more than 6 points, but what the hell. At least they tried hard.

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.