60/100

The Revenant, directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu, is a masterclass in portraying a sense of an untamed yet euphoric setting. Its grimy and increasingly mythical landscape contrast with serene Digital images, showcasing a vast environment with a conflicted aura of inhospitable wilderness and the tantalizing search for greed and power. With Emmanuel Lubezki at the helm as DP, and armed with the Arri Alexa 65, the result is a gigantic adventure with a scope as wide as its constant lens choice, but sadly miscalculated when it comes to core story components.

Its ultimately disappointing to think, after all the horror stories involved in production, that something so misguided can result from such obvious turmoil, but most of the issues…

I was going to just knock off a smart-ass little one liner … ‘Hiring Mr. Lubezki does not a Malick film make’ … but I’ve been writing too many of those lately, and Alejandro Iñárritu deserves more respect than that. Amores Perros, 21 Grams, and Babel are all films I’ve seen, enjoyed, and respected. I was on the ‘loved’ side of the divisive Bird Man.

I do believe in the nut of that quip I was going to post. I think Iñárritu began to change with Birdman, and the biggest evidence of that change was saying goodbye to long time cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto and striking a new relationship with Chivo.

Rodrigo Prieto is no slouch, but he’s a cinematographer that…

I fell for the trailer hype when The Revenant was first being marketed. From what I first saw, I was being built up to believe this movie was going to be a harsh, gritty, man-versus-man vengeance movie.
Upon watching the movie for the first time and NOT seeing what I was "promised" (along with terrible movie-goers), I ended up despising The Revenant.
A few months later, I had the chance to watch it again at home. After sitting down with the mindset that this was a man-versus-nature movie, I fell in line and praised it. The cinematography in a majority of the scenes was brilliant, and the entire cast performed spectacularly.
There are only a few nitpicks that stuck with…

The Revenant was fantastic.

My quick thought before I go in depth. HOLY SHIT! The opening battle is fucking bananas, by far one of the greatest in film history. The cinematography throughout the movie is amazing. The acting, the lighting and the music are also great. My only problem is that I feel that it drags on a little long, if 10 or 15 minutes were trimmed the film would have felt more tightly nit.

I will go in depth on different aspects of the film now.

ACTING AND CHARACTERS:

Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio)
Leo gives by far his greatest performance in his career. The shit that he had to work through on set also shows his dedication to the…