Review: Solaris 451
Lem's novel is a really good work of sci-fi, not light reading but worth the effort to comprehend. The new Solaris movie is only 90-odd minutes long, and at that it's too long.
Comparisons will be made to 2001 and Apocalypse Now, two other slow-moving, philosophical movies. The problem is that both of those movies actually had interesting things to say, and managed to keep the viewer's attention despite being slow-paced. Solaris is simply slow. Long sections of the movie have no dialog and no background sounds whatsoever. When there is background music, it lacks the classical majesty of 2001 and is actually a bit annoying. These flaws might be forgivable if we were truly interested in the plot, but we aren't: it's a trivial love story, told many times before. (Most of the interesting parts of Lem's book have been sliced away to leave only the love tale, and the sci-fi twist is not enough to save it, IMHO.) I found myself nodding off during parts of the movie.
A couple of the reviews I read didn't quite grasp what was going on, especially the end. I found it quite clear and straightforward: the movie gives you plenty of clues so there shouldn't be any doubt left in your mind when the credits roll. Admittedly I approached the film with substantial knowledge about the book, but... it should have been clear to anyone.
Overall: it's pretty. The effects are well-done, at least you aren't short-changed there. As far as sci-fi movies go, it isn't bad - there have been so many worse sci-fi movies that I'll take whatever I can get. And at least they had the decency to make it short; if this movie were 2.5 hours long instead of 1.5, it would be intolerable. I'd recommend it to sci-fi fans. I'm not sure I'd recommend it for non-fans, however; if you want a love story, go see Ghost or something.
Slightly Offtopic (Score:3, Interesting)
Shocking.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Invisible Car?! (Score:3, Interesting)
Die Another Day (Score:2, Interesting)
Too many typical Bond puns. I.E. Villian: [holding sword] "I'll get to the point"
Gadgets you know Bond should allready have. Sure back in the day it was cool to see what new toy Bond was going to get, but we allready have seen it all. There were few suprises in that department.
The only cool gadget: The Invisible Car. Nice concept, cameras on each side project incoming image on the opposite pannel.
The Plot: Evil guy makes big gadget to take earth hostage...Bond shoots some guys & has lots of sex...Bond allmost dies...Bond saves world
Still some sweet explosions/gunfights.
Bond movies have allways been great, but there's just no more anticipation of whats going to happen or what Bond is going to do. Its just too predictable.
Don't dis the invisible car (Score:5, Interesting)
We have the technology today! Flexible LCDs are a reality [macworld.com]. The tech used in the movie is entirely reasonable and practical: cameras shoot a picture from one side of the car and project the image on the other side.
When Q (Cleese) walked around it on that first shot, you saw his legs get huge and flash by as he walked in front of one of the cameras. That was the touch that made it beleivable.
You'd be better off making fun of some of the other stupid things in the movie, such as the entire driving-around-in-the-melting-ice-palace sequence.
Re:Invisible Car?! (Score:3, Interesting)
Since we already thinking along the lines of expensive (or 10 years away technology), it would be easy to have an infrared detector which would detect the prescence of a body. Assuming it's a human body, the software could use that to determine what to display, so that it looks "proper" from the persons' viewpoint.
Another problem I didn't mention in the original post is that there would be so many electrical lines on the circuit that you'd need to use polysilicon to help do some multiplexing, and stuff like that. This technology is decently advanced right now, but to make an invisible Bond car I'd say at least another 5 years.
But the cost will be enormous for 10 years at least. And no one will want it, so demand will be rock-bottom, which means even more expensive...
Saw it, liked it (Score:2, Interesting)
B+ Film (Score:3, Interesting)
Even with the distracting love story, the end really resolves well and doesn't play too hard on the leads' relationship. I guess it should have been used more as a device.
Overall, it was a good "theme" movie (as opposed to 99.5% of movies, which fall into the "plot/action" category) along the lines of Magnolia or American Beauty. I walked away with a few interesting questions and mixed feelings.
Re:Better go soon if you're interested (Score:2, Interesting)
It's incredible to me how obsessed people are with stating that the movie must be bad because the average filmgoer doesn't get it or is bored by it. Have these people seen what passes for a "hit" movie these days?
-Tom
Re:wtf (Score:5, Interesting)
Some portions of the score were fantastic to. there was a montage with an amazing sountrack --it was based on electromagnetic recordings from deep space (I haven't read this from anywhere, but I have heard NASA recordings of deep space and there is no mistaking them).
This version of solaris is really about the changing perception of the universe to the main character -- although they tread pretty lightly on that theme. If you want to see a well executed movie with a neat soundtrack that will make you think just a little bit but not quite enough, go see Solaris.
Aston Martin "Vanish" & Adaptive Camoflage (Score:5, Interesting)
The Car in the bond film is a bit of fantasy loosely based on reality.
Adaptive Camoflage is designed to be fitted to the Reactive Armour plates on modern tanks using liquid crystal or simmilar technology. The system can be used in the case of a prepared position where the tank commander walks say 100 feet downrange prior to the tank being positioned, takes a digital photo of the position and then moves the tank into place.
The picture is then used to 'paint' the plates on the vehicle to resemble the area the vehicle was moved into so an enemy unit approaching from a distance will find it hard to visually aquire the tank.
This system can also be used to 'best-guess' the colours required when stopping in the battlefield (albeit without jumping out for the snapshot). For example; a tank could stop half in front of a building and hedge and be 'painted' in the colours of the building & hedge.
This only works against an enemy unit approaching from one direction and even then would only work from several hundred meters away (unless the enemy approached in a straight line directly toward the tank).
This system will likely be implemented and refined over time but a vehicle which could appear 'invisible' under close inspection is rather far-fetched and something very much based in Science-Fiction
invisible car != jumped the shark (Score:3, Interesting)
James Bond films have always reflected the times in which they were made, for better (1960's) or worse (1970s-80s).
Right now, an invisible car is just what you'd expect from a Bond picture, IMHO.
If we needed a reason to dislike DAD, look no further than the TERRIBLE visual effects.
Re:Bond, James Bond. (Score:5, Interesting)
- James Bond films don't need reviewing. Everyone knows exactly what they're going to get
... explosions, nasty baddies, Bond being cool, gadgets and girls.
What you say ?40 years of cinematic history down the toilet in favor of bright flashes and loud bangs. Since XXX is a Bond wannabe, that makes Die Another Day a second generation knock-off. What's missing from this movie? Any real sense that we're watching 007 rather than a generic spy in a tuxedo.
For Die Another Day, some elements of the Bond formula are intact: the cool gadgets (including an invisible car, a glass-shattering ring, and an ice speeder), the attractive women (although, at least in the case of Jinx, she's more of a partner/rival than a mere love interest), the globe-trotting (from North Korea to Hong Kong to Havana to London to Iceland), and the martinis (shaken, not stirred). The villain, Graves, and his henchman, Zao, are unmemorable, and their inevitable comeuppances are hardly the kind of moments to get audiences cheering.
The opening theme is dreadful. It's a Madonna pop tune, not a Bond song, and its lack of musical consistency strikes a dissonant chord. (And, as "payment" for providing such an awful piece of music, Madonna gets to "act" in a cameo, which, unfortunately, allows her to speak a few lines of dialogue.) David Arnold's score, which makes liberal use of the "James Bond Theme," seems okay, although most of it is drowned out by the explosions.
Director Lee Tamahori (Once Were Warriors, The Edge) may be to blame. Even though this anniversary movie supposedly contains something from each of the previous 19 outings (many of which appear as props in Q's lab), one gets the sense that Tamahori either doesn't understand Bond or has miscalculated the nature of his appeal. It's not enough to throw all of the Bond elements together and hope that they somehow work. A little more precision and craftsmanship are necessary (and a better script wouldn't have hurt things). Let's hope this represents an aberrance, not a trend.
If there's one thing to recognize, it's that a single bad outing will not succeed where Blofeld and dozens of other maniacs have failed. Whether played by Pierce Brosnan or someone else, James Bond will return. Let's just hope that when he does, he's the 007 we have come to love and admire, not the impostor that inhabits Die Another Day.
© 2002 James Berardinelli [colossus.net]
SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS YADDA YADDA YADDA (Score:3, Interesting)
There are a number of aspects that are absolutely fantastic. The exposition is very very well done. Stanislaw Lem fans, Soderberg fans, and hell, even Clooney fans will be happy with the exposition, even though it's the slowest part of the movie. That's my biggest confusion w/ this review - the slow parts were the best parts of the movie. I almost wished they just skipped the plot. Clooney 'n' the scientists' acting were so excellent that I wish they just played with character all movie long.
The whole movie deviates from the novel in big ways. In the beginning, Lem fans will accept those changes, because they were good decisions. The end, unfortunately, is full of bad decisions.
The end of the movie was very disappointing for me. I'm not the kind of person that feels a movie needs some Usual Suspects style reversal in order to be interesting or witty. If it's well orchestrated, and the movie is lightweight in the first place, then it can be nice. Here, it felt cheap. I wanted a hard answer. They didn't deliver. Still, scenes like Clooney sitting in the library leaving a message to coordinate a meeting... that made it all worth while.
Re:Event Horizon (Score:3, Interesting)
OK, I'll forgo modding other comments in this article to reply...
by far the most effective use of sound for a horror movie that I've ever experienced
And to stay vaguely on-topic, I can't imagine any film of Solaris getting within the same *universe* as Tarkovsky's original, let alone touching it. Although I do remember despairing when the University sci-fi society showed it, and just fast forwarded through the 'boring bits' of it. Aarrghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...
Re:wtf (Score:1, Interesting)
The sound did sound like those NASA recordings at times. It was appropriately eerie and unsettling, a lot like the sound in Lynch film. What Soderberg did though was amazing. He gave structure to the sound, so that in the crescendo at the climax of the film, all had been prefigured--if you were listening. It is one of the best sound designs I've heard in quite some time.
Re:Solyaris vs. Solaris (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm afraid, timing standards of an average sci-fi flick don't apply to Tarkovsky.
Then, in 1972 (especially for a Russian viewer), this probably could express dehumanization and solitude of the technological world. It's kind of ironic that seeing a car driving through an endless urbanistic maze makes an average modern viewer think "hey, nothing worth mentioning is going there".
Re:Bond, James Bond. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:This is about par for the reviews I've seen of (Score:3, Interesting)
To me, it seemed like the kind of movie that humanity will appreiciate more a long time from now, when we're much more mature as a race. This movie is deep, it stimulates us to think about what we really are as humans. Most of the people I know aren't used to anything beyond the depth of "Die Another Day." Maybe that's why the reviewer mentioned that movie as a contrast. There's some deep intellectual stuff going on in this movie, and all the quiet times are there for the viewer to reflect and think.
If you're not used to thinking, then this movie definately will suck for you. I thought it was well worth the price. Go, make up your own mind, and if it sucks for you, ask for your money back. They'll usually give it.
(my $0.03 CDN)
I expect good stuff from Sodenberg. (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, Seth, you did.
Event Horison was a fun movie, which tried to touch on the themes Solaris covers; fear, loss, lack of communication, regret, and perception versus reality. The science is hokey but Solaris was no better and Event Horizon moved at a good pace, had plenty of great lines and excellent effects. How could you forget other lines like, "You don't need eyes to see where we are going."? Awsome. To make things really good, it had gotten dark, and the sky was full of heat lightning when we came out. God has the best shows.
Please do rent Event Horizon and record the lines you like and post them.
In any case, I expect great things from Sodenberg. His insight is penetrating and he's not afraid to amuse his audience with it.