A frontiersman on a fur trading expedition is left fighting for his life after being mauled by a bear, to make it worse the men who said they would stay with him abandon him at the last moment. Against all odds he some how survives . . .
Let’s face it we have heard a lot about this film recently mainly because of DiCaprio and speculation that it could be his turn now to win that Oscar that he should have had already by now. The only problem with all that talk is that it then raises your expectations for this film. Not that you are expecting a bad performance from DiCaprio then as I don’t think that is really possible in all honesty he is just well constantly amazing with an incredible range and has certainly shown it off over the years with his acting ability.
The thing is The Revenant does not really have a very complex story at all it is pretty simple and the trailer does tell you all about it. It’s showing how much the human body can be put through and still manage to keep going when the will power of a man to get revenge for something. In this case a father who wants to kill the man he had to watch kill his son when he could do absolutely nothing at all about it, he had to lie and watch as the life was taken. That describes well pretty much the whole film, it doesn’t really have much else to it. Actually that doesn’t really sound the best as it does have some impressive performances. Not only from Leo but throw Tom Hardy into that mix as well as Domhnall Gleeson (isn’t he in everything at the moment?).
I would be quite interested to know how many words/lines Leo actually has in the film as a lot of the time is spent with heavy breathing, making noises and shuffling around in the snow, trying to protect himself and stay alive. It made me feel very strange in all honesty as I was just expecting something a little different, the running time feels even longer as it has very slow moments. It was also not clear the timeframe of things happening, especially when the group ended up being split, I felt that I needed to know different timings and how far behind each other they all were. How long was out in the snow for? Too many unanswered questions for my liking.
The final scene was probably the most intense but I guess it had to be with the extremely long build up to that moment. Right now I would go as far as saying I didn’t really like the film, that may change after digesting it over night but that is my initial thought on what I was expecting to be a masterpiece. It had some beautiful shots of the mountains and sky, with a very impressive score but something was just missing from it for me. Not really sure how to explain that in all honesty. I guess we don’t like everything that we are supposed to or told that we will, I guess I will be in the minority not totally loving this one. I will be happy if Leo eventually wins an Oscar and he put everything into it.
Some scenes weren’t fantastic to watch, but I don’t know how many different animals we had to see them eat in all honesty, it just felt like taking up more time as we got the point after the first time. Used as a method of trying to shock the audience more than anything in the end? As that was how it felt for me, I didn’t think anything seemed to have a twist and it was all pretty obvious in the build up what was going to happen next (cannot really elaborate on that without spoiling parts of the film).
This certainly won’t be for everyone.
