Why are the critics raving about this?

Rating: 5/10 (21 January 2016)

How many movies does this one steal from? Let me see. The attack at the beginning is right out of 'Saving Priavte Ryan' with bows and arrows. The scene where DiCaprio's character stays warm by gutting the horse he was riding and sleeping inside it is right out of 'The Empire Strikes Back', and I can almost hear the director saying 'Let's take that a step further and have him actually sleep inside it!' Give me strength. The whole theme of a GOOD WHITE MAN befriending Native Indians in 1800s America is Dances With Wolves. In fact the whole time I was watching this I couldn't help thinking the director was trying to recreate the 'magic' of Kevin Costner's 1990 film and God knows why, as it was pretty schmaltzy to begin with! Then there are the ridiculous scenes in which suspension of disbelief is stretched beyond many films I have ever seen. I am fully aware that this is LOOSELY based on a true story and that Hugh Glass (who DiCaprio plays) actually survived a bear mauling and managed to find his way back to civilisation but in the cinematic version of events we are asked to believe that he also was dragged down a river in freezing temperatures for a few miles when his body had already been put through the proverbial ringer and didn't suffer hypothermia, that a horse he was riding leapt of a cliff with a drop of around 150 feet and that the horse dies but he survives WITHOUT BREAKING A SINGLE BONE. Really?
Then there are the clichés. Dream sequences in which we see his now dead wife, flashbacks to how she was killed.
And the made up stuff. Why oh why do Hollywood-made films insist on making up things in stories 'based on true events'?? There isn't just artistic license here, the writers saw fit to give Glass a part Native American son which he never had, just to have him killed and give his character more reason to go after his killer. And that's another thing, the real Hugh Glass didn't kill the guy because of the heavy penalty for killing a U.S. soldier, which the guy was at the time.
And there is the always irritating to me fact that they insist on casting actors whose accents aren't the actors native ones ie Tom Hardy is English so why cast him as an American? Especially an American in the 1800s? Is he that much of a box office draw? I was quite excited to see this because I loved 'Birdman' so much but this just reeks of a filmmaker trying to attract Oscar attention. It reminds me of when Michael Cimino was given free reign on 'Heaven's Gate' because 'The Deer Hunter' was such a critical and Academy darling, although this is a much better film than 'Heaven's Gate'. I'm giving it 5 stars because of DiCaprio's acting and the absolutely stunning cinematography. The music is quite good too.
Oscar nominations? It deserves the following:
Actor, Cinematography, Editing, Production Design, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing