Beauty and brilliance, tedium and toil

Rating: 6/10 (21 January 2016)

The Revenant is in many ways absolutely masterful; to criticise such a stunning piece of film-making almost feels inappropriate. But the film highlights both the strengths and weaknesses of its talented director, and lacks a few key ingredients which could have made this a masterpiece in cinematic history.
I doubt I need to comment on the fantastic visuals: the locations are breath-taking, and the landscape shots repeatedly made me sit back and marvel throughout the film. The actions scenes are some of the best-directed I've ever seen - the Native American attack which opens the film has the camera following events down low, on horseback, underwater; it picks up a moment of action and moves onto the next. The effect is to have the viewer feel involved in the scene, as if it were unfolding right before your eyes, and it really drives home the sense of chaos and confusion felt by the characters. The final fight of the film (no spoilers) is one of the best of its kind ever recorded. I'm tired of seeing perfectly choreographed, dirt-free finales. What you get in The Revenant is so tense and visceral that everyone around me in the cinema - many of whom were bored and restless with the film by this point - were suddenly transfixed, gripping the arms of their chairs. The scene combines the tension of the knife-fight towards the end of Saving Private Ryan with uncompromising, unflinching brutality that looks more like a bar fight than a movie duel.
Leonardo DiCaprio is excellent; over the last few years he's grown from one of my most disliked to one of my favourite actors. However, I enjoyed Tom Hardy's performance even more. Partly this is because his role in the film allows him to do much more than mostly express physical pain; but what I love about Hardy is that he always makes his characters believable as well as mesmerising to watch. Time and again he steals the show and becomes the actor you can't wait for the camera to pan back to in his recent films; another top-notch performance here. Credit also to Domhnall Gleeson, who impressed me here as he did in Ex Machina and The Force Awakens - a new star, for sure.
For the points I've made so far, the film is worth seeing. It's an astounding cinematic experience, especially in an age when over-use of CGI predominates. Unfortunately, the film has its shortcomings too. To say it felt 'bloated' would be unfair, considering the meticulous attention to detail; but undeniably, this movie makes its length felt. The key problem is the lack of an emotional core; the main character's physical suffering and feats of endurance can only sustain our interest for so long without any character development. An attempt to flesh out the character is made with the clumsy inclusion of flashbacks and hallucinations - these segments were tedious, though thankfully short. Ultimately, we never really get to know our protagonist. Now, this need not be too much of a problem - one of my favourite films, Apocalypto, also indulges in minimal character development for its survival story. Apocalypto did two things differently, however: firstly, the pace never slackened; the main character is constantly chased and the action is non-stop. The Revenant stops and starts and pans up to a tree canopy a few too many times. Secondly, Apocalypto had a 'ticking clock' element, lacking here. Apocalypto, then, was full of tension; The Revenant really misses a narrative drive and ended up feeling too long. It's similar to Werner Herzog's Aguirre: lots of stunning landscape shots, lots of great cinematography, lots of admirable on-location work by the actors and crew - but it's patience-testing. The ponderous nature of The Revenant made it disappointing for me that Inarritu misses a couple of great opportunities to ratchet up the tension: the opening attack could have had a tense prelude before the action kicks off, and there's a scene where the main character is discovered by Native Americans and has to flee, which doesn't take its time and create some fear.
It's difficult to create a strong narrative core to a film that's essentially about the survival feats of one man, granted. But the stop-start pace doesn't work well with the lack of character depth or development, and leaves the audience questioning why they're watching the gruesome spectacles on-screen; as we sit through another long scene and reflect - there's certainly enough time to stop 'experiencing' the film and start reflecting as a movie-goer - we wonder what all the spectacle is in service of. And the answer is, well, a very shallow story. Not that I think Inarritu aimed for a particularly deep story - but his visual masterpiece struggles to fully hold the viewer's attention. There is one opportunity for moral complication which is declined (very non-specific to avoid spoilers): one of the men who leaves the protagonist for dead doesn't simply leave him because thinks he's going to die anyway and is worried about his own survival - he also does *something else* which gives the main character reason to hate him and want revenge. The *something else* is a non-historical detail and could have been omitted - wouldn't it be more interesting if, rather than a straightforward revenge plot, we have to question our protagonist's right to seek revenge? If we the audience had to question whether we would leave the man to die - if the protagonist himself had to question this?
If you're an impatient person, don't watch this film. To most people, however, I'd recommend a watch. Go book yourself a good seat at a cinema with a big screen and marvel at the visuals, the acting, and the action.
There's certainly enough that's great about this film to make me excited to see what Inarritu does next.