Review of Solaris (2002) by Tyler M — 31 Mar 2012

Who knew outerspace could be so boring?

It's a romance movie with a science fiction twist.

The Story: A psychologist is sent to a space station orbiting a strange planet. While there, he gets a visit from his dead wife. Most of the story is spent explaining his relationship with his wife, but once you see what happened it turns into a struggle to stay with her, raising the questions "is it ethical to be stay with someone if they're only a representation of someone you once loved?" and "is it possible to fall in love with someone if you, yourself never really knew them in the first place?". It's really sleek and stylish, everything is silver and in shades of grey. It's a little misleading however, at the beginning it would seem that you're going to be in for a thrill ride, only to unveil a long drawn out drama...And I mean LONG.

The Cast: George Clooney, Natascha McElhone, Viola Davis, Jeremy Davies...George Clooney is Chris Kelvin, he's the man sent to the space station only to find that the planet it's orbiting is responsible for some strange activities on board the ship. Not his best performance, but it's a lot better than some of his other works *cough*Batman*cough*. Natascha McElhone is Rheya, Chris' former wife, and representation of his former wife. She gives a good performance as the understanding entity that only wants the best for Chris. I don't think I've ever seen any of her other roles, so this is by default the best performance I've ever seen from her. Viola Davis is Gordon, the tough, no nonsense woman that wants to end whatever it is that's going on, on board the station. A good performance, not as good as McElhone, but still a fairly solid act. Jeremy Davies, plays the part of Snow...Yeah, I don't know what the hell kind of name that is either, I mean really you have Chris, Rheya, Gordon, and then you have Snow...But odd choice of name aside, he's the quiet, smart guy on the ship. He knows and understands the problem better than most of the other characters. A good performance but a little typecast, if you watch him in Ravenous (I'll try to post that review sometime this month) you'll see him playing a near identical character only in a completely different time period and setting.

One to Five Scale: 2.

A decent cast that can't quite compensate for a slow moving and boring story.

Tyler.