Solaris (2002)
Directed by Steven Soderbergh
A troubled psychologist is sent to investigate the crew of an isolated research station orbiting a bizarre planet.
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What critics say influenced Solaris
Perhaps even more than Tarkovsky's film, Soderbergh's feels like a purely formal exercise, a visual and philosophical voyage (in the obvious vein of Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" ) that begins and ends at the same point, our own planet, which turns out to be no more "real," no less rich and strange, than Solaris itself.
The movie bears a stronger resemblance to 2001: A Space Odyssey than to Star Wars , with an emphasis on ideas over action.
Solaris bears a closer resemblance to 2001: A Space Odyssey than it does to Star Wars, Episode II: Attack of the Clones.
The film it most resembles is Kubrick's masterful 2001: A Space Odyssey, both in its majestic, sweeping vision of a spaceship-bound catastrophe and its slow, measured story pacing.
This idea of reanimating the dead takes on metaphorical as well as literal shape, in part because Soderbergh appears to be reviving the sort of epic, thought-provoking science fiction exemplified by Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).
(In fairness, some were heard to condemn the film on the grounds that it 'rips off' Event Horizon and Sphere, even though Lem's book predates both of those pictures by several years.)
Purportedly the Russian answer to Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey," the film was pretentious and dreadfully slow but nevertheless intriguing and went on to inspire the likes of the similarly themed "Event Horizon."
Sci-fi followers will quickly recognize the plot, taken from Stanislaw Lem's novel, since it's been unofficially borrowed for many other films (most notably the 1997 thriller "Event Horizon," which gave it a gruesome twist) and TV shows.
While several of the plot conceits have been seen over the years ("Event Horizon" being a prime example), Soderbergh makes them seem fresh and intriguing by focusing on the character relationships rather than the special effects.
(See "Traffic," where supernal cinematic art was deployed to send the message that Drugs Are Bad.) On one hand, it seems remarkable, even outlandish, that the same director who remade the Rat Pack caper flick "Ocean's Eleven" would go on to make a new version of Andrei Tarkovsky's "Solaris," a languorous, Soviet-made art film that (like most of Tarkovsky's work) pushes at the outer edges of philosophical abstraction.
Solaris is based on the novel by Stanisalw Lem, which was first brought to the screen in 1972 by Soviet filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky.
If you haven't seen Andrei Tarkovsky's 1972 SF masterpiece Solaris, can't see it Friday night, November 29, on Turner Movie Classics, and don't want to watch the just-released DVD or wait for the Music Box's rerelease in January, you might find Steven Soderbergh's remake intriguing and compelling, because the story it tells is certainly haunting.
Solaris is a remake of Russian director Andrei Tarkovksy's 1972 film.
His daring new project, Solaris, is a dead-serious, big-budget remake of the fabled 1972 art film by the late Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky.
In its mind-boggling sci-fi beauty, it's closer to the heavenly apparitions of Douglas Trumbull's Brainstorm than it is to Tarkovsky's source material.
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Finding each other on "Out Of Sight" is the best thing either of them has done.
With the divergent "Ocean's Eleven," "Traffic," "Erin Brockovich" and "Out of Sight" on his recent rsum, the writer-director now turns to a remake of the Russian science-fiction classic, directed by celebrated Soviet filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky in 1972.
Those who saw the stirrings of a Serious Actor in O Brother Where Art Thou and Out Of Sight will be pleased to see Clooney leap yet again to a new level of dexterity, poise, nuance and restraint.
The way the director shoots it all, catching the glances, the smiles, and the ugly moments as well, is reminiscent of the magic he brought to Out of Sight years ago.
The maverick director of Traffic and Out of Sight doesn't shy away from challenges, and even when he fails, you can sense him planning for his next run at the hill.
Out of Sight and Traffic contained a wide variety of film stocks and filters, while The Limey and The Underneath played around with time.
The whole set is dull-o-rama and makes Aliens look like Moulin Rouge in comparison.
Co-produced by James Cameron's company Lightstorm, Solaris fits loosely into Ridley Scott's Alien future with its monolithic "Company" and the need for a specialist to infiltrate a corrupted interstellar outpost--a future Cameron plumbed in 1986 with his modern genre classic Aliens .
If “Solaris” shares anything with a Cameron production, it’s the relentless claustrophobia of “Aliens” — here applied to Chris’s crumbling psyche via Clooney’s jittery, guilt-addled performance and a Dylan Thomas poem motif.
Most of the crew has disappeared, as if the beast from ''Alien'' had already been through and eaten dinner.
Co-produced by James Cameron's company Lightstorm, Solaris fits loosely into Ridley Scott's Alien future with its monolithic "Company" and the need for a specialist to infiltrate a corrupted interstellar outpost--a future Cameron plumbed in 1986 with his modern genre classic Aliens .
Most of the crew has disappeared, as if the beast from ''Alien'' had already been through and eaten dinner.
He seems glued to a mood; his notion of reality consists mainly of dank urban rain and gloomy interiors out of Blade Runner, and his sense of outer space is strictly 2001.
Working with his longtime production designer Philip Messina (who recently did "8 Mile"), Soderbergh has created an unobtrusive yet convincing futuristic look, sleek, rainy and lived in, that seems to echo "Blade Runner" while carving out territory of its own.
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But it's been a good long while since there's been a sci-fi flick that's more internal than anything else; those looking for a Star Wars-type adventure will be deeply disappointed.
But it may not be for sci-fi fans who crave Star Wars-like adventures or Alien-esque thrills.
Fans of quick-edit, CGI-effected fluff like Terminator 2 or even the pyrotechnics of Star Wars are bound to be twiddling their thumbs waiting for SOLARIS' end credits.
Since "Star Wars" brought the genre to the masses, most everyone now associates sci-fi with special effects and action-laden fantasy stories.
After all, it had James ‘Titanic’ Cameron’s name on it (he’s the producer) – surely it was bound to be an action-packed effects bonanza?
Some people might be looking for a Titanic in the sky, what with James Cameron being a producer, but Solaris is an epic of the emotions, not the planets.
We are thankful that Soderbergh convinced James Cameron ("Titanic") who owned the rights to this property and intended to direct it, to allow him to take it on.
Sci-fi buffs, enthused by Camerons return to the genre that he revolutionized, were put off by the utter lack of futuristic hardware, those hoping for the "Titanic"-style romance promised in some of the ads were alienated by the emotionally reticent tone and cinephiles were offended by what they saw as Soderberghs nerve in even attempting a remake of Andrei Tarkovskys 1972 epic (a film generally held in higher regard than, say, "Oceans Eleven") in the first place.