The basic ingredients of Tarkovsky’s original are here, and - not surprisingly - the effects are better. The scenes set on earth look futuristic without being improbably neat and shiny. Solaris itself is wonderful, a star rather than a planet, complete with weird flares and prominences that suggest a dreaming mind.

It’s a pity that George Clooney’s performance as Kelvin suggests no kind of mind at all. The gifted Natascha McElhone has to carry this film dramatically while her leading man gives a performance that is so bad it’s almost subversive. At times I found myself wondering if the wooden crassness of Mr Clooney’s approach (stand, stare balefully, say the line like you’re reading it off a board) was intended as subtle satire on the psychiatric profession. Probably not.

Faced with such an insensitive old bore, it’s hard to view Kelvin’s wife’s suicide as a tragedy. Soderberg’s ill-judged attempts to provide a back story so that we can empathise with the lovers only make you realise how unconvincing they are as a couple. Compared to the striking images of Tarkovsky, which amount almost to a film within a film, the domestic bickering shown here seems hackneyed and perfunctory.

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By all means rent the DVD to see the pretty pictures and hear the interesting soundtrack, which is perhaps the film’s most original ingredient. But don’t expect this poor imitation of a classic to satisfy - it has, as it’s heart, not wonder and mystery, but a gaping absence of creative imagination.