Cathardincu Surprisingly incoherent and boring

VeteranLight I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Kamila Bell This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Ella-May O'Brien Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

moonspinner55 Steven Soderbergh's remake of the 1972 Russian film "Solyaris" casts George Clooney as a psychologist who is sent a message by an old friend pleading the doctor to join himself and the crew of the space station Solaris for reasons undisclosed. Once aboard, Clooney discovers obvious distress and his friend's dead body--as well as a warning that what is happening on Solaris will soon happen to him. Good-looking picture with wonderful art direction, fluid pacing and precise editing in the dream sequences; however, the main character isn't very intriguing, and nearly all the performances are underwhelming. As a member of the paranoid surviving crew, twitchy Jeremy Davies is used as comic relief. Though the picture could certainly use some levity, Davies nearly sinks the movie with his low-key hipster ranting, annoying gum-chewing and distracting tics (also the fault of Soderbergh, who allows Davies too much screen-time to go into his pothead arias). I don't think Clooney is ever in character here; he seems overly conscious of the camera, working his handsomeness--his externals--tenderly as a way to connect with the audience. It doesn't substitute for a gripping characterization and, by the end, most viewers will feel indifferent to the romantic plot twist. ** from ****

ixtlan Yes. I mean that. Viewers want to see explosions, murder and mayhem. Not unanswered questions and thought experiments. This movie will give you plenty of those. A typical quote from the movie is "There are no answers. Only choices." Now how many of us have the patience to think about that one? This movie challenges us to sit still for a minute and really listen to what the characters are saying and what it could possibly mean. I thought the acting was excellent given the complexity of what Stanislaw Lem was trying to convey. If he was trying to convey existential crisis, I think the movie succeeds. I loved the touch of making one of the scientists a strong black woman. I watched the original Russian version (1972) before trying to digest the newer one. The newer one resonated with me more. Perhaps because it is more current - perhaps because the in Russian version I had more trouble understanding the timelines and how they fit it - until the end. In the American movie, the timelines make more sense but there is no twist at the end. The last few minutes become predictable. I also found the Russian version much more difficult to relate to emotionally though. I don't know how either movie compares to the book, but that will be my next stop.

richard phoebus There are some interesting themes in the film - and in many ways, this is an outer space version of Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind with a few Vanilla Sky time-line distortions mixed in for good measure. Each of these three films was exploring similar ideas at around the same time.Who hasn't butchered a fantastic relationship and wished there was a way to go back and make better decisions?Solaris resonated with me in that I found it to be about second chances with a love that went from perfect to tragic, and the idea that what may have accelerated the deterioration may have as much to do with people's perceptions of one another as much as the situation itself.As for the suggestions that there are too many unexplained occurrences throughout the movie, such is life.Peace Richard

snafux7 One of the most boring movies I've ever tried to watch. I initially put it on mid-afternoon one day and found myself asleep within 17 minutes. In fact, it was so tedious and exhausting that I slept for the next 12 hours straight and still I awoke feeling groggy and disoriented. I tried watching it again the next day and was unable to pay attention to the story or the characters. That's the key problem of this film, the entire cast could suddenly die and it still wouldn't matter. It's just a horribly boring film with boring, undeveloped characters and nothing going on. I made it about 40 minutes through and then had to turn it off.