Technically accomplished, but left me a bit cold.

Rating: 7/10 (4 April 2017)

This is really more of a 6.5 out of 10, but maybe I'm just splitting hairs. The cinematography is amazing to the point of being distracting. It's as if Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu, upon realizing that we have the means to shoot a scene of Leonardo Dicaprio being mauled by a bear in extended, agonizing close-up, decided that every scene should be shot in that way. Maybe I'm overthinking things, but that ended up taking me out of the action. The bear is obviously CG, and since we know that director Innaritu and cinematographer Emmaneul Lubezki are using some digital trickery to make the whole thing appear to be one seamless shot, what's the point? I almost think that scene would have been more effective had it consisted of separate shots, so that a real bear could be employed in long shots, with cuts to a close-up of an animatronic paw crushing Leo or something like that.
I should probably talk about the plot now. The story concerns a couple of fur trappers on the Western frontier in the 19th century, who are set upon by violent Natives and have to turn back. When one of them (Leonardo Dicaprio, resorting to masochistic extremes in order to win that Oscar) has a heated debate with a grizzly over which of them deserves to continue breathing, the group leaves him for dead. Tom Hardy plays another member of the trapper group, and he, rather than the bear, is the true villain of the piece. I won't give away what he does, suffice to say that if it weren't for his performance, my rating would be at least two stars lower.
This isn't a bad movie. I know I'm being snarky, but it really isn't. That said, I liked Innaritu more when his head wasn't quite so far up his own ass. "Babel" might overreach somewhat, but it has a lot more to say than this bloated film. The scenes with Leo forced to fend for himself in the wilderness verge on misery porn. There is something inherently thrilling about watching people survive on limited resources (see "Castaway" for a superior example of this).
This is the kind of film where I can admire certain parts more than I can say I like the whole. Those tracking shots are impressing, sure. There are some fantasy/dream sequences that are well-shot, but that I can't make head or tail of. The sheer physical torment that Dicaprio must have put himself through for this role is admirable, but then again, he was so much more fun in "The Departed". I just wish the film weren't so dead-set on being great that it sometimes forgets to be good.