The Revenant

The Revenant (2015)

82% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 292 reviews)

Runtime: 156 minutes

Directed by: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

Starring: Leo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Domhnall Gleeson, Will Poulter, Forrest Goodluck

From: 20th Century Fox

I am posting this later than I expected to, but alas... I don't love this film like many do; then again it's polarizing and I've seen people who hate it; I can't go that far. I'll explain my feeling this movie is only "fine" below in my Letterboxd review:

This was the final movie I saw on my Saturday movie marathon where me and like 200 other people were at an AMC Theatres seeing 4 Best Picture nominees in a row. To me this would be the most interesting flick out of the four. It is embarrassing to admit on a site like this that I had never seen any of the pictures directed by Mr. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu until I saw this one, yet it is true. I just never felt like doing so. Birdman just looked so pretentious and unappealing from the trailer, plus it was so polarizing on Letterboxd and the negative reviews made it sound like something I'd despise. I noticed that this was also polarizing, to a lesser degree. I had no idea what I would think of this myself.

The story being a simple one of a fur trapper named Hugh Glass looking for revenge after he was left for dead by a real A-hole named Fitzgerald, I was fine with that. There wasn't much ambiguity, but that was OK and it was clear that not only did he not personally care for Glass, he was looking out for himself about all else. Afterwards I looked online and read about the real Hugh Glass and while some of it may be apocryphal, it is said that he was savagely attacked by a bear and he did go 200 miles while severely injured and he looked for revenge against Fitzgerald, even if the story told here took various liberties for dramatic license.

I heard this described as “misery porn” and I'll go with that description. While based on a true event, it becomes preposterous how much abuse Glass and the other characters endure. The movie feels even longer than 155 minutes and as it progressed I really started to feel the length. There were also various story issues I had that I won't spoil here in case anyone still hasn't seen this yet, but that made this a mixed bag despite its positives and I know why there are people that downright hated this motion picture. The pretentious moments did not help in that regard either.

Yet, there was enough to where I can still say that this was “fine” and give it an appropriate rating. The cinematography and the sound design were both standouts. I mean, they were amazing and for those reasons I am glad I saw this theatrically. Except for some moments I loved what Ernest Lubezki did behind the camera so I can't fault him winning the Oscar again... although it'll be real nice once Roger Deakins finally gets it. The opening massacre scene... it was incredible how it was filmed. The scenery that this was film in was absolutely gorgeous; I loved looking at the landscapes. At times I thought that Inarritu focused on that a bit too much, but it was still really pretty scenery. I don't fault the performers for what they did, especially Leo and Tom Hardy. Not surprisingly, everyone had difficulties on the shoot... not surprising considering they filmed outdoors in freezing weather. I was also surprised to see Domhnall Gleeson was in this; I had no idea. What an incredible 2015 he had; I think about this movie, Ex Machina, Brooklyn and The Force Awakens, and those were four roles completely different from each other and yet in that quartet there was not one even mediocre acting job.

I discovered that it was not just online sites like Letterboxd where this film has gotten a mixed reaction. After Brooklyn, Spotlight and The Martian there was a good amount of applause. After this one... maybe everyone was just tired, but there was only a small smattering of applause and I heard someone yell, “What do you mean you thought this was terrible?” to his friend, so to me there must have been plenty of people who weren't wowed by this. While it is nice and all that they were able to film something like this in real settings instead of a greenscreened world, I wish that the story could have been as spectacular as the sound and the visuals.