A breathtaking disappointment

Rating: 8/10 (26 December 2015)

Leo Di Caprio stars as Hugh Glass, a man who survives a grizzly attack, falling down a waterfall, an attack by the Indians and falling down a cliff (while on his horse) just in order to get back at Fitzgerald(Tom Hardy). This being a Hollywood film, it's not very hard to guess who will have the last laugh, in spite of all the obstacles that one could only survive in CGI. And don't even get me started on Glass' ability to miraculously recover from each near- fatal injury in no time and just keep crawling and panting through snow and ice. Even if one looks past all that (if you want real life, you don't go to a cinema in the first place anyway), the other flaw of the film is that you don't really feel anything for the characters. With everything favoring your sympathies for Glass, he doesn't pull it off, since he hardly say anything for the whole duration of the movie, and his relationship to his son doesn't come off as emotional/warm enough in order to justify going through so much effort to revenge his death. That being said, there's one thing though that I enjoyed immensely- the breathtaking photography that makes you easily fall in love with Canadian forests and mountains. If you ignore the ridiculous plot, this comes off as a true love letter to the marvels of nature and its cruel beauty.