Beautiful, but...

Rating: 9/10 (23 December 2016)

"The Revenant" is like necessary evil; it is so easy to admire but very difficult to love. It resides in a mundane world notwithstanding being very beautiful to look at. Perhaps that is the vision of director Alejandro G. Iñárritu – to construct a picture that is formidable in its filmmaking and at the same time paints Hugh Glass's (Leonardo DiCaprio) steadfastness and his legendary journey for survival. Either way, I still regard his previous work which is "Birdman" to be the superior movie overall.
It was built on a very simple tale – a son is being killed, and the protagonist goes all-out to hunt down the criminal. Although the movie has 'revenge' elements in it, it is best interpreted as a survival-drama instead of a revenge-drama picture. DiCaprio delivered a performance which led to his first Oscar win while Tom Hardy's act as the movie's villain Fitzgerald was just astonishing. Tom Hardy is no doubt one of the best actors working in Hollywood today where we've seen him in lots of movies and had been in all sorts of characters. Will Poulter was great too, but I can't say the same for Domhall Gleeson's performance. The film's cinematography led by Emmanuel Lubezki is eye-popping, despite being shot on digital instead of film.
It is still as solid as it tried to be. Performances are great, cinematography is great, although DiCaprio's historic triumph will overshadow the movie's other achievements. I can understand the film's difficulty in entering the top 5% of critics' choice last year. This ugly-pretty picture adopted a serious tone that seemed to be too joyless. "The Revenant" is clearly not for the masses. The rudiments of its ideas are to sculpt an artistic, expressive art, but primarily not to entertain. The accolades that had gotten the film's great success is surely, I guessed now, is well-deserved.
(Cinematicmadness.blogspot.com)