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—— After Earth May 31
—— Now You See Me May 31
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90% The East May 31

Solaris (2002)

tomatometer

66

Average Rating: 6.5/10
Reviews Counted: 202
Fresh: 133 | Rotten: 69

Slow-moving, cerebral, and ambiguous, Solaris is not a movie for everyone, but it offers intriguing issues to ponder.

71

Average Rating: 6.4/10
Critic Reviews: 41
Fresh: 29 | Rotten: 12

Slow-moving, cerebral, and ambiguous, Solaris is not a movie for everyone, but it offers intriguing issues to ponder.

audience

54

liked it
Average Rating: 2.9/5
User Ratings: 46,346

My Rating

Movie Info

A therapist travels to a distant space station to treat a group of astronauts traumatized by mysterious entities -- and ends up having to deal with an entity of his own -- in this second film version of Stanislaw Lem's philosophical sci-fi novel. Solaris stars George Clooney as Chris Kelvin, a psychologist still mourning the loss of his wife Rheya (Natascha McElhone) when he's implored by a colleague named Gibarian (Ulrich Tukur) to investigate the increasingly weird goings-on at the Prometheus

Jul 29, 2003

$14.8M

20th Century Fox - Official Site External Icon

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All Critics (203) | Top Critics (41) | Fresh (142) | Rotten (70) | DVD (47)

Scripted, shot, directed and edited by Soderbergh with his customary intelligence and assurance, this is perhaps the most ambiguous and cerebrally sophisticated Hollywood movie in nearly three decades.

June 24, 2006 Full Review Source: Time Out
Time Out
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Fiasco of infuriating pretentiousness and numbing incoherence.

December 19, 2002
New York Observer
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I prefer Soderbergh's concentration on his two lovers over Tarkovsky's mostly male, mostly patriarchal debating societies.

December 19, 2002 | Comments (3)
New York Observer
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A hushed, haunted tone poem about love and loss.

November 29, 2002 Full Review Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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[Soderbergh] tends to place most of the psychological and philosophical material in italics rather than trust an audience's intelligence, and he creates an overall sense of brusqueness.

November 29, 2002 Full Review Source: Chicago Reader | Comment (1)
Chicago Reader
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A solemn, splintered meditation on lost love: a movie about personal space, in space.

November 28, 2002 Full Review Source: Slate
Slate
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...it remains a fascinating work and its deep questioning of what makes us human when faced with simulacrums feels if anything more relevant today than when it was made.

June 4, 2011 Full Review Source: Paste Magazine
Paste Magazine

Steven Soderbergh prunes Andrei Tartovsky?s 1972 film (based on Stanislaw Lem?s novel) to the clarity and concision of a great short story ? a forlorn, philosophical sci-fi romance treading the terrain of "Blade Runner?s" metaphysical melancholy.

October 8, 2010 Full Review Source: Suite101.com
Suite101.com

A thought provoking, fascinating and heart breaking glimpse into characters that must come to grips with their past.

April 29, 2009 Full Review Source: Cinema Crazed
Cinema Crazed

Steven Soderbergh's extremely sedate, Spartan science-fiction thriller and love story pits man's common sense and perceptions of a higher power against his own dreams and desires.

August 7, 2008 Full Review Source: Sacramento News & Review
Sacramento News & Review

It's an unusual challenge for a Hollywood film with a major star, but worth the effort.

March 21, 2008 Full Review Source: Combustible Celluloid
Combustible Celluloid

While Mr. Soderbergh's direction is always compelling, the whole film does not always equal the sum of its parts.

July 14, 2007 Full Review Source: Big Picture Big Sound
Big Picture Big Sound

fascinating, despite its flaws

March 4, 2006 Full Review Source: Apollo Guide
Apollo Guide

Soderbergh's Solaris is a gorgeous and deceptively minimalist cinematic tone poem.

December 6, 2005 Full Review Source: Film Threat
Film Threat

Soderbergh's latest may well leave Stanislaw Lem grumbling. My bet is virtually everyone else will be blown away.

December 6, 2005 Full Review Source: Film Threat
Film Threat

The images are crisp and the pacing faultless, as you'd expect with Soderbergh, and the soundtrack (with music by Cliff Martinez) is an environment in itself.

March 3, 2005
The Nation

Many will justifiably find [it] a heady experience akin to 90 minutes of watching paint dry. Others will see that paint forming something close to a masterpiece.

January 21, 2005 Full Review Source: Portland Mercury

Based on Stanislaw Lem's novel and Andrei Tarkovsky's sci-fi epic, Soderbergh's Solaris is drastically abridged and the most sentimental of the three.

January 15, 2005
Looking Closer

It remains as remote as Pluto from the audience.

June 23, 2004 Full Review Source: Courier-Journal (Louisville, KY) | Comment (1)

An unoriginal piece of originality. Move on.

May 26, 2004 Full Review Source: eFilmCritic.com
Oz
eFilmCritic.com

...Tarkovsky Lite, with George Clooney's naked posterior bringing up the rear.

February 16, 2004 Full Review Source: Boulder Weekly

Sure Solaris is ambitious. Even audacious. But too many plot points are left to the audience's imagination without any explanation whatsoever.

February 1, 2004 Full Review Source: FilmStew.com | Comment (1)

Audience Reviews for Solaris

In this elegantly low-key sci-fi drama, we get George Clooney as a therapist who travels to a space station to treat its troubled inhabitants who have encountered something traumatic. While there, he ends up having an encounter of his own.

This is the second film based off of an old novel, and, while it is cliche to say this, I liked the first version better. That would be Tarkovsky's 1972 opus also called Solaris.

That might be the grander, more important film, but this one is significantly shorter, and not quite as pretentious. It's still quite slow and quiet however.

It's a film big on ideas, and yes, while it does drag, it's a great mood piece. If you have insomnia, this or the '72 film would be great to put on. That's not quite a knock, either.

Patience is key with appreciating this movie, but I think it's worth it, and Soderbergh is the perfect person for a remake like this.

Clooney is good, as you'd expect, and Viola Davis is decent, too. I also liked Jeremy Davies, whose "out there"-ness really brought a bit of levity, while also helping to get the mood right.

The plot could be a bit stronger, but overall, this is an alright film that fits somewhere in the upper middle of Soderbergh's oeuvre.
April 24, 2012
cosmo313
Chris Weber

Super Reviewer

This is truly one the best films in the career of Steven Soderbergh among his fantastic Traffic. It is also one that defines him as a one of the most talented auteurs working with film these days.
There is this sense of cold isolation and grief that remotely reminds me of the work of Stanley Kubrick here, but at the heart it is still pure Soderbergh with non-linear storytelling, use of handheld camera and that unique visual palette which only Soderbergh can create.
It may be Sci-Fi from the surface, but from the inside it is a heartbreaking story of a man who surprisingly gets a second chance with his lost love. It is not often to see scenes this heartwrenching or touching. Soderberh makes a perfect use of poet Dylan Thomas in his story of a doomed love and is beautifully hinting that love is a everlasting emotion that never dies, though we humans do.
George Clooney and Natascha McElhone perfectly captures their characters and make you care about their story. There are even moments between them that reminds me of acting technique in Ingmar Bergman's films.
Solaris is a truly haunting film with excellent score by Cliff Martinez.. It might not be the most accessible film or without it's flaws, but it is clearly a film that comes straight from the soul of it's maker.
May 9, 2009
emilkakko

Super Reviewer

    1. Gibarian: If you think that there is a solution, you'll die here.
    – Submitted by Chris P (2 years ago)
    1. Dr. Chris Kelvin: And death shall have no dominion. Dead men naked they shall be one with the man in the wind and the west moon. When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone they shall have stars at elbow and foot. Though they go mad they shall be sane. Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again. Though lovers be lost love shall not. And death shall have no dominion.
    – Submitted by Chris P (2 years ago)

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Latest News on Solaris

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Did you know that Steven Soderbergh was making a movie about Che Guevara? Starring Benicio Del Toro...

Foreign Titles

  • Solaris (2002) (UK)
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