A beautiful shot, and well acted movie!

Rating: 9/10 (30 January 2016)

The Revenant. In this movie, we meet Hugh Glass. He is a frontiersman. Together with a group, they are on a hide- hunt. But due to a series of events, Hugh gets attacked by a bear. After this attack he gets left behind for death by his crew members, and kill his son, now he is out for revenge for the one who left him behind and killed Hawk... (Hawk is the name of the son)
Let me start this part of my review of with saying that this was a goddamn beautiful movie.The director of "The Revenant" is Alejandro González Iñárritu. Last year, as I said in my "Birdman"-review, he was a unknown man for me. He has this special style, and I really like it. There were a lot of spectacular scenes in the movie. (More on this later) The cinematography is so, so pretty. The landscape was brought into a beautiful picture. The editing was great to, which brings me back to the scenes. My favorite scene of the movie was the first attack scene. They made it look like it was one long take, without any cuts. Alejandro González Iñárritu did this to with "Birdman". But the brilliant aspect of this was, that there really are cuts, just hidden away, using CGI, or just skillful editing. Using this technique, they create a lot of tension. This scene also brings all the characters together. Due all of these reasons, this was my favorite scene. Throughout the movie, you can see more of these scenes (like the final scene, in the end, i'll talk some more about it). The costumes were well done. They looked worn out, and old. The make-up, looked fine. It wasn't easy to look at the wounds of DiCaprio, but the scars looked at moments not too good. The lighting was maybe one of the more impressive aspects of the movie. It was very good, but they only used real lighting! This includes fires, sunlight, etc. The music is the next topic i am going to discus. In "Birdman" there was a lot of very good music. So I went into this movie expecting the same, unfortunately I didn't get it. It was still well chosen music, but not as good as in "Birdman". The sound was good as well. The set design now. Well, there weren't really a lot of sets. It were almost all nature-sets. The set that was there, was the camp of the other frontiers. This looked very realistic to me.
The acting. This was amazing. Please, give Leonardo DiCaprio just an Oscar already! This guy was amazing as Hugh Glass. He keeps surprising me, with his acting talent. He didn't have a lot of lines, but his facial expressions, was already enough. The antagonist of this story is nature, but also Tom Hardy. Hardy played Fitzgerald. He was the person who killed the son of Hugh, and left Hugh for death. His character was the most interesting for me. He manipulates persons. Even right before he starts to fight with Glass. He starts trying to convince him, that he wasn't lying after all. He was good too, so he can get an Oscar too! :) No, I am just kidding, he was good, but I don't think that it was Oscar worthy. Another crew member was Bridger. Will Poulter played him. By his acting performance I was really surprised. Also by the screen time he had. I wasn't expecting that he would have such a big role in the story. His character was like ably. You felt sorry for him, when they beat him, because of something that he hasn't done. Like I have said I was surprised by his performance, because it was very good. Normally I am annoyed by his acting jobs, but this time I luckily wasn't. The leader of this crew is called Captain Andrew Henry, played by Domhnall Gleeson. Gleeson seems to appear in every movie I see. First "Ex Machina" then "Star Wars", and now here. But anyway, he was very good too. The supporting cast, was well. The one that stood out to me was the actor of Hawk, Glass' son. Forrest Goodluck played him.
The script was written by the director himself, and Mark L. Smith. The story was good, but not for everyone. There were some boring elements, and that's why I think a lot of people won't like the movie. The dialogue was good, even though there wasn't a lot. That was also a very impressive part. They managed to keep the story interesting, even with almost no one talking. This also kept me interesting, due to Leo's Fantastic acting. But now something more about the ending. This was also shot in almost one take, which made it very tensfull. The fighting was gritty, which fitted the theme of the movie. It was realistic as well. It was unpredictable, I wasn't really sure if Glass would win. Another 'bad' thing was the fact that they tried to put in the thoughts of Glass. I didn't really mind, but I can understand that some people will. I think that this was a thing to make us understand Glass better.
But overall this was a beautiful shot movie, with fantastic acting, and some good writing. It is not a movie for everyone, but I would still recommend watching this movie.
8,5/10