There’s nothing for Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky to be ashamed of in Solyaris (1972), which was essentially his response to what he perceived to be the problem with Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey: an unhealthy obsession with technology (“Kubrick is intoxicated with all this, and he forgets about man, about his moral problems,” said Tarkovsky). But the remake, expertly and exquisitely executed by Steven Soderbergh, has no such preoccupation. Indeed, he’s said that he didn’t intend Solaris to be a remake of Tarkovsky’s film but rather a new version of Stanislaw Lem’s novel. What’s more, it manages to extract that all too rare achievement from a sci-fi film: emotion. Both George Clooney, playing a psychologist sent to investigate a troubled space mission, and Natasha McElhone as his character’s (late) wife Rheya give real gravitas to Solaris. The movie is also mercifully short for the genre, clocking in at barely over 90 minutes. (Tarkovsky took 165.)
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