DHKR: The Revenant

Rating: 9/10 (19 January 2016)

Leonardo DiCaprio WILL do whatever it takes to win an Oscar. He'll get mauled by a grizzly bear, get buried alive, limp and crawl his way out of being buried, gut and sleep inside a horse a la Empire Strikes Back, and even do hand to hand combat with Mad Max himself. Guys, give the man his Oscar, or else he'll probably crucify himself with hot steel bars and barbed wires, before getting stabbed in the side with a harpoon by the Antichrist in the bowels of hell (or Indiana in June) to the irritating sounds of Pentatonix!
Not to any disservice to The Revenant itself, as it is a really damn good movie, and I really want to give special mention to the makeup department. Every gash, cut, scrape, splatter of blood, and wounds seeping with puss look terrifyingly realistic. You see the freshest of cuts slowly heal up and look as if they're getting infected. Combine this with how great DiCaprio's acting is in this, and you get a scarier feel of tension then in any horror film of recent memory. You see him slowly transform into a survivalist savage who's in constant pain. You never see Leonardo DiCaprio, but rather Hugh Glass, the character he plays.
Another mention goes to the director, Alejandro GonzÃ¡lez IÃ±Ã¡rritu, for how well he shows us such breathtaking and beautiful views of the frozen points of Canada to visually tell a story. Many points that lack dialogue are well done, especially when combined with DiCaprio's physical acting ability and the musical composition. It's a real match made in heaven
The Story, however, is the weakest part of the film. "The Revenant" is loosely based off the Michael Punke novel of the same name. I never read it, but I'm sure there were many deviations from it, as this is solely a survival film that has some generic revenge plot against a racist villain jumbled in, almost like a delicious bacon and chicken sandwich with melted Hagen Daz on top. It just feels forced and out of place, and it really dumbs down Tom Hardy's character to just another Clayton from Tarzan, only now he has a son that's that annoying ginger from "We're The Millers" and "The Maze Runner"
It doesn't really matter, since the visuals, acting, and composition save the film from being a mess. It's an easy recommendation for those who love a good survival film, and to everyone else should at least give it a look. It's a really good one.