Great Photography And That's About It!

Rating: 5/10 (23 February 2016)

Essentially a remake of the 1971 "Man In The Wilderness" starring Richard Harris as Zachary Bass (Hugh Glass) and John Huston as Captain Henry, although this version is said to be based on the 2002 novel of the same name by Michael Punke. That said however, the real-life story of the mountain man, Hugh Glass, is well-known in Western lore.
Visually, "Revenant" is stunning and markedly superior to the 1971 version - as is to be expected with the advances in cinematography in the intervening 45 years - but dramatically it's pretty poor fare when compared to "Man In The Wilderness". DeCaprio doesn't even come close to capturing the gaunt suffering of Harris's Zachary Bass and Domhnall Gleeson's performance is pretty pallid compared to the craggy awfulness of John Huston' Captain Henry. Pity, it's such a great story.