Brutal, Beautiful, and Amazing

Rating: 9/10 (10 January 2016)

I'd been excited to see The Revenant since I had first heard of it, and when I'd heard that Alejandro G. Inarritu was in the directing chair with the same cinematographer who did the marvelous camera work on my second favorite film of all time, I was understandably pretty excited. And while this wasn't better than that film, it was still a pretty fantastic film over all, and the one that I'll be pining for in all categories at the Golden Globes and the Oscars. Without spoiling the film, the cold, intense and frankly brutal atmosphere is held from start to finish, aided by every aspect of the film. The cinematography is as strong as ever, and the performances are absolutely amazing. As of now, DeCaprio's raw performance as Glass is my favorite over all performance in an Inarritu film. The soundtrack was intense, and the violence is some of the most brutal and challenging that I've ever seen in a theater, being more horrifying and endlessly more meaningful than much of the violence and scares that modern horror can deliver. If I had to make a few small nitpicks, some scenes could be cut out completely and the film wouldn't have been any worse. Some character motivations are a bit sketchy, and occasionally snow or breath will fog the camera up, but I'm not even sure if that last one is a criticism, because it is not very normal to see such raw camera work in such a high budget film. Over all, 9/10... go see this as soon as you can.