"Birdman" was just the beginning.

Rating: 8/10 (21 January 2016)

Alejandro González Iñárritu's career in Hollywood is going pretty well nowadays: only at the 2015 Academy Awards he won three Oscars for directing, producing and writing "Birdman", and as if that wasn't enough, he's back one year later with another incredible piece of cinema, longing to take home a few more statuettes and to make history as the first director winning twice in a row the biggest award in cinema. Watching his new work, "The Revenant", there's little to argue about his deserving the price: every scene is studied in the most impacting way possible, and sometimes you get to wonder how did he manage to shoot a piece in a certain way that appears to break the laws of physics. Sure thing, his camera work is supported by the unparalleled cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki (who already worked for Iñárritu in "Birdman" and for fellow Mexican director Alfonso Cuaròn in "Gravity"), whose use of light makes this movie not only an engaging survival adventure, but one that can also be enjoyed for its views and landscapes only. The story may be considered the weak part of the project, as it isn't particularly inventive (at least until the last few sequences) and maybe exceeds sometimes in giving some sort of invincibility to the protagonist, but it works perfectly with the other components and it's hard to imagine how else it should have been unraveled once the film is finished. Speaking of the protagonist, Leonardo DiCaprio may have found the role that will finally let him enter the Oscars family: his turn is incredibly real, brutal and painful, his voice is raspy and hardly recognizable and his physicality has changed a lot for the role since "The Wolf of Wall Street". He definitely deserves the gold, even only to make amends for the previous snubs. At his side are two of the busiest actors of our time, Tom Hardy as the baddie (or is he?), and Domhnall Gleeson as the captain of the expedition. Both of them did a great job, but especially Hardy with his hypnotizing, rough way of speaking and his complex personality which makes him a very hard character to define. All considered, this movie is well deserving of his Best Picture nod and the probable winner.
May not be as stellar as "Birdman", but it's a very close second. 9/10