Tragically spoiled opportunity

Rating: 6/10 (13 April 2016)

I was really looking forward to this movie after reading the well researched historically based novel. I saw the movie after the Oscars. No quibbling the Oscar for Cinematography for Lubezki. Mc Bride should have landed his nomination for visual effects too. Breath taking realistic action and panoramic landscape with underplayed natural sound effects. However, the grizzly itself was pitifully underwhelming. One cannot ever believe surviving two lengthy maulings, no matter how difficult it is to discard expensive left-over footage. I cannot however understand why Iñárritu had to deviate from the story with needless ornate sentimental flotsam, Inventing and predictably killing a son unforgivably destroyed the whole theme of the story. I really appreciated Tom Hardy's role as a hard boiled opportunist brute - without becoming just another stereotyped Western baddie. What I could not really fathom is how Leonardo even got nominated for leading role Oscar. His early lines were mostly in some remote N.American Indian tongue. His voice was then reduced to groaning for most of the rest of the film. With a face hidden with hoods,full facial body hair, grime and ice - what acting can possibly peep through? No amount of extreme survival tour de force stunts can ever be classified as acting. Perhaps Leonardo wanted us to know that he has graduated from dying within a few minutes of calm ice cold sea to surviving hours of freezing white water rivers. Oscar for effort at best.