Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9452 in DVD
• Released on: 2003-07-21
• Rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Anamorphic, PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 94 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Solaris is a remake of Andrei Tarkovsky's Russian film (often called the "Soviet 2001"), itself an adaptation of the Polish Stanislaw Lem's novel, and is anything but a typical American science fiction film. Psychologist Chris Kelvin (George Clooney, playing it very cool and introverted) is sent to a space station orbiting the perhaps-living planet Solaris to investigate a loss of communication with Earth, and finds only two survivors: a free-associating neurotic (Jeremy Davies) and a control freak (Viola Davis), along with several corpses and evidence of recent violence. Kelvin is shocked to wake up next to his wife Rhea (Natascha McElhone), who committed suicide back on Earth years ago, and treats her like a body-snatched alien, disposing of the creature by jettisoning her into space. But she comes back again, and Kelvin realises she isn't a soulless monster out to get him but a genuinely self-aware construct built from his own memories. Though warned against getting involved, Kelvin tries to maintain a relationship with the non-human woman, hoping to avoid this time the mistakes he made that led to Rhea's death.

Steven Soderbergh, the most versatile and unpredictable director in Hollywood, stages a few big space moments, fascinated by the red and stringy ball of Solaris itself, but mostly sticks to interiors that have a Bergman-esque austerity, with Clooney and McElhone inhabiting their own room and going through deep emotional traumas while avoiding actual outbursts. It may be too interior a film for mainstream audiences, though at a clipped hour-and-a-half it isn't as hard going for non-devotees as the three-hour Tarkovsky version, but there is a lot of real meat here none the less. --Kim Newman

DVD Description
DVD Special Features

• Feature length audio commentary by Producer James Cameron and Director Steve Soderbergh (sound Dolby 2.0)
  
• HBO behind the scenes special
  
• Solaris: Behind the Planet feature
  
• Script
  
• Animated menus

DVD Technical Information:

• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 (16 x 9 Widescreen)
  
• Sound Quality: Dolby 5.1
  
• Subtitles: English for the hearing impaired
  
• Running time: 99 minutes

Special Features
16:9 Anamorphic Wide Screen
English
Region 2

Customer Reviews

Hypnotising movie
George Clooney and the astonishingly beautiful Natascha McElhone shine in this Soderbergh low budget remake. It is a slow, mature movie about a love story on a haunted spaceship. Clever dialogue and solid characterisation are at the centre of this hypnotising movie along with a sense of impending doom. The music and cinematography are first class.
If you are mentally challenged and you think that explosions and/or weapons are the apex of cinematic joy then avoid 'Solaris' and go rent Transformers or Wind Talkers.
Selah.
Bee Clarke.

The Boson Delusion
The plot of "Solaris" promises to mine fascinating seams of meaning, then declares them unworthy of excavation. An interesting theme about the ontological status of our memories starts to develop, then crashes and burns as the "memory", left alone, looks back on memories of her own. Again, Kelvin has a conversation with another apparition about precisely who is hallucinating whom, but that goes nowhere as well.

We are shown a short clip of a dinner-party where Rheya - whose name is changed from Hari in the 1972 film to be homonymous with the Greeks' great mother goddess - debates the existence of God - that debate never resurfaces, either, but the subject is not entirely dropped; it's a theme, but not as we know it.

It's said by some that the god(s) of the former prevalent religion feed the demonology of the next. Thus, the horned god of the pre-Christian pagan religions - which were eventually given the coup de grâce not by Christianity but by Enlightenment thinkers - is said to have inspired depictions of Satan. You could say that radical militant atheists are trying to do the same job with God - note that the title of Christopher Hitchens' tome is not "God does not exist", but "God is not great". The still-undiscovered Higgs boson (some sources capitalise both initial letters) is breathlessly referred to by some scientists as the "God particle." A massive underground basilica has been built at CERN to welcome the putative quark at a price which makes St Peter's look as if it was funded from the petty-cash box. I think it's significant that the beam which "kills" the shades comes from a Higgs field. The god particle undoes the existence of those made in God's image.

Or does it?

Beautiful love story set in space
This is a great movie that did not do very well in the box office due to some marking issues.

The original Soviet movie has been acclaimed as one of the most brilliant sci-fi movies ever made ( the Soviet answer to 2001 ) however it goes on for nearly 3 hours.

The plot follows the arrival of a Psychiatrist ( Clooney ) to a space station to investigate the unexplained changed in behavior of he members of the station.

Steven Sodenbergh has shortened the feature to 90 minutes , Clooneys acting is very convincing, but the best thing is the movie is Natasha McElhone who delivers her best performance so far , as very intense and troubled woman. Jeremy Davies and Viola Davis complete the cast.

The atmosphere and sound effects of the movie are claustrophobic and dark but have a flavor that reminds of Bladde runner and 2001 ( the docking scene and the rain in the street .

The movie will appeal to sci-fi fans and those who are interested in open ended stories ( who might have to do some research on the internet to find out the meaning of he movie ).

Overall a very enjoyable 90 minutes but this is not a fast paced action movie but a love story set in space.

"And death shall have no dominion"