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…

If I had to summarize this in three words: Diet Cormac McCarthy.

The survivalist and action aspects were certainly engaging, but on the negative end of things it was incredibly superfluous . Aside from being mauled by that bear Glass takes almost everything in stride to the point of approaching implacability. There were moments it felt more like let's show off our cinematography while Leonardo DiCaprio grunts and growls to the point of accidental comedy. Oh hey, Natives are attacking? Meh, just slip into freezing cold water like one would slip into a comfortable bath.

I was vastly more impressed with Tom Hardy's performance and character, to the point where I earnestly say that Fitzgerald was a far more interesting…