Solaris Review

After the deserved worldwide success of Steven Soderbergh's and George Clooney's last collaboration, heist drama 'Ocean's Eleven', much was expected from this, the duo's follow up,. In the movie Clooney plays Chris Kelvin, a psychiatrist who is called upon to investigate strange events happening on a space station orbiting the ocean planet of Solaris. Arriving at the station Kelvin is confronted by the remains of the crew who are experiencing unusual visions and its not long before Kelvin starts seeing the physical embodiment of past memories himself.

With such critical and commercial successes as 'Ocean's Eleven', 'Traffic' and 'Erin Brockovich' all within the space of a few years, its not surprising that we had high expectations of director Soderbergh's latest movie - Twentieth Century Fox certainly did when they stumped up the cash for it. Unfortunately 'Solaris' will disappoint many fans of both Soderbergh and Clooney, as it's about as far from 'Ocean's Eleven In Space' as imaginable! It is instead a film that seems to start as a futuristic thriller before soon evolving into a slow moving, character driven, art-house movie (all be it one presented with a very impressive and clinical looking science fiction sheen) that wants to deal with such high-brow concepts as the nature of truth, faith and the afterlife. Even Clooney's on screen charisma is stretched close to breaking point over the course of a movie that - although it stays true to the director's brave vision - will nevertheless fail to enthral or entertain his multiplex fans.