Recipe for pretension

Rating: 6/10 (16 January 2016)

Take one whole side of 'Inferno' (1953, Robert Ryan, Rhonda Fleming); add two cups of 'Grizzly Man' (Werner Herzog) and one of ''Apocalypto'; a sprig of 'Into the Wild' and a dash of 'There will be Blood'; season with a tablespoon of Tarantino. Let the whole mess half bake for 256 minutes at maximum carnage. The result is a film in which Iñarritù's undeniable talent succumbs to the public's insatiable appetite for screen violence for its own sake. James Bond on his best day could not take the sadistic punishment meted out to Leonardo di Caprio in this parable of 'vengeance is mine'. Somewhere along the line, amidst all the gore, punctuated by delicate and sometimes mawkish moments of dreamlike spirituality, the story loses sight of itself. Not to say that the hundred million budget wasn't well spent. The opening battle scene and the near-fatal encounter, early on, are superbly done. Some of the best CGI I've ever seen put to good use. Worth the price of the ticket just to see these two sequences. Otherwise, Iñarritù should get back to what he does best: shooting a tight screenplay with great acting and less grand philosophizing about nature.