This isn't your grandpa's JEREMIAH JOHNSON . . .

Rating: 9/10 (16 January 2016)

. . . as Robert Redford never had to crawl a thousand miles with a broken leg as the title character of that Western that set the standard for gutty realism and wintertime survival in the 1900s. Apparently, Oscar-nominated REVENANT director A.G. Inarritu has decided that his best chance for back-to-back wins (after last year's over-rated BIRDMAN, which stole the golden statuette from WHIPLASH) is to take a page out of Alfonso Cuaron's Oscar-winning Playbook for GRAVITY, as he recycles pretty much the same plot in an attempt to give Hispanic "Magic Realism" (known as "Fantasy" to those who speak American) a clean sweep of top awards during the past three popularity contests. Sure, GRAVITY takes place this century in Outer Space and THE REVENANT is set in the 1800s down here on Earth. But these are just superficial differences, when you consider the core of each plot. Both Sandra Bullock and Leo DiCaprio keep seeing Dead People, a hallmark of Magic Realism. They both face a personal survival challenge, though not much is on the line for either one of them beyond their own life. Bullock and DiCaprio's characters both get help from unexpected foreign sources, as implausible serendipity substitutes for adult logic in Magic Realism. But Hispanic Fantasy is trendy with the Hollywood "Elites" currently, and anything that smacks of Real Life and has something important to say about today's world (think THE HATEFUL EIGHT and TRUMBO) gets the Stink Eye from Tinseltown.