I had high expectations for this, being a sci-fi lover and having seen the great reviews splashed all over the posters. Plus, there was the additional attraction of seeing George Clooney�s nekkid bum, and the knowledge that it couldn�t possibly be worse than Mission to Mars.
Actually, it probably was. It started out looking every inch the high-concept, high-aesthetic film that I had been promised on the posters. It kept you hanging on to every minute piece of information whilst dousing every shot with gorgeousness and atmosphere. But from there, it plummeted.
Chris Kelvin (Clooney) is a psychologist sent out to a ship orbiting Solaris, a beautiful planet which appears to
have been exerting mysterious forces on the ship. Upon his arrival, Kelvin finds the ship close to empty, dried blood marks, and two dead bodies. All surviving crew are terrified, yet no-one can bear to leave for earth. The reason being that somehow the crew�s dead loved ones are appearing all over the ship as manifestations of the crew�s own memories.
This not-so-original situation had the opportunity to be either spooky or emotive, and completely fails at either. It at least allowed us to see the wonderful performance of Natasha McElhone, who acts everybody else off the celluloid. The plot then spun off into incomprehensibility, in the bad way rather than the good way. This, on top of the art director�s irritating belief that we should appreciate some kind of semiotic depth in the alternation of warm glowy colours for home, and sterile green tones for space, IN EVERY SINGLE SHOT � this was done subtly in One Hour Photo and was just really, really tedious here. Beyond that, plot-wise, �tantalising� turns into �slow�.
There�s one thing worse than a bad film, and that�s a film that starts great and goes bad. This is why I rate Mission to Mars better � at least it doesn�t start off pretending that it�s going to show you great science, high concepts or beautiful cinematography. And I�d rather look at Gary Sinise�s face over George Clooney�s bum any day. |
