'Solaris' is well worth catching

Solaris

Director: Steven Soderbergh

Cast: George Clooney, Natascha McElhone, Ulrich Tukur, Jeremy Davies, Viola Davis

Cert: 15.

Soderbergh re-works the Russian 'space' drama by the late, great director, Andrei Tarkovsky; and Clooney shines.

The action is set on a mysterious space-station sometime in the future, to which the troubled psychologist Kelvin (Clooney) journeys at the invitation of an old friend (Tukur); on arrival, he finds disturbing events and only two survivors of some recent horror.

It's a solid re-working of one of the classic space films and Soderbergh takes the original novel by Stanislaw Lem and expands it into a film of the exploration of the human condition. And he makes of it a film that contains a rich mixture of emotions.

It is not, in many ways, as good as the original but there is enough invention to make satisfying viewing, and Clooney, as a dark character coming to terms with the suicide of his wife (he blames himself for her death), is quite excellent, underlying his growing reputation as a fine actor.

The film has a terrific look to it and there is a memorable score from Cliff Martinez.

Star Rating: 4/5