The Revenant: Beautiful and Vacuous

Rating: 6/10 (18 January 2016)

"The Revenant" is the Angry Super Model of the Oscar Season
The Oscar for best cinematography goes to Emmanuel Lubezki for "The Revenant."
"The Revenant" is the best looking film I have seen in many years. The depth of the shots is overwhelming; the mountains and the snow in the film are amazing to look at. Unfortunately, the plot and characters don't live up to the look of "The Revenant." The film is vacuous and lacks substance, much like a china doll.
DiCaprio is good as Hugh Glass, but like the best player on a team that doesn't win a championship doesn't deserve an MVP award, DiCaprio doesn't deserve a best Oscar nod for his performance in "The Revenant." The other characters are flat and underdeveloped, and the acting is crushed under the beauty of the photography.
Certainly, John Fitzgerald played by Tom Hardy has his moments, but he doesn't bring the character up to the level of pure hatred. For a revenge film, you need someone like Bill McKinney who played Captain Terrell in "The Outlaw Josey Wales." Now that was a character you love to hate. Fitzgerald didn't have enough of a past for us to fully appreciate how despicable he is. Thus, the revenge tale is not charged enough. Besides, Fitzgerald had a point when he told the Captain that he didn't trust Glass as a guide since Glass had failed to detect the Ree surround the trappers early in the film.
While Hugh Glass is a man of few words; his son Hawk is practically mute. There are decent flashbacks that demonstrate their relationship, but what of the son in the present? There is little to go on. And the role of the Captain might as well have been left out of the film. The actions the Captain takes are heroic, and at the same time, incredibly stupid.
There is little tension in the film other than the violence of some of the moments. There are no revelations of Glass's tracking acumen, no feeling of impeding doom felt by the evil Fitzgerald who thinks Glass is dead, no surprises in the chase and nothing revealed that is a surprise at all. All that is left is the beauty of nature and the inevitable cruelty of humanity. None of that is surprising.
Rating: Matinée
See it for the scenery, but don't expect to be surprised by the action or enthralled with the characters.
Peace,
Tex Shelters