Artful yet suspenseful!

Rating: 9/10 (10 January 2016)

Being one of the apparently very rare people that are not a huge fan of Alejandro González Iñárritu's "Birdman", I at first considered not watching his latest installment, but gladly I did!
"The Revenant" is a suspenseful movie from its first second until its last even though it might not have typical and expected action sequences. The whole film is more of an alternative project and deviates greatly from mediocre film making. The camera work is fantastic and unique! It is especially impressive if you consider that the whole movie was shot using only natural lightning! Especially the images of the landscapes are tremendously beautiful! Furthermore, the performances were outstanding! Leonardo DiCaprio, who plays Hugh Glass, was really good and convincing. As a viewer you cannot help but feel pity but also admiration for Glass! It is so unbelievable that those events really transpired! But to me, the real scene stealer was Tom Hardy, whose character is closely linked to Glass'suffering! Concerning the plot it takes some time until it is clear what kind of movie it really is and it may leave some people disappointed because in the end there is not that much substance to it and some scenes just felt a little bit unnecessary. But that really is nitpicking and does not annoy during watching just when reflecting afterwards! This movie was also surprisingly gory which I did not expect going into it! The trailer already gives hints to that but there really is a lot of blood and gore in this film though it really adds to the tone of the movie and as a special make up enthusiast I have to say it is very well done and impressed me greatly! In general, there is some stuff in this film I really would like to know how they achieved it (specially a certain bear scene). Additionally the score is beautifully fitting! Most of the time it is very calm but the typical drum sounds (similar to Birdman) are also present.
In total, this movie really surprised me and I hope that it gets the recognition it deserves and I cannot wait to read the book about the story of Hugh Glass!