The Revenant

Stunning cinematography, atmospheric music, a great Tom Hardy and some riveting scenes. But if the protagonist crawling through the woods for those 156 minutes had been someone I cared even a little bit about, I probably would have had a lot more fun. A good and in some ways exceptional film that I never want to see again in my life. (06/01/2016)

The Revenant is undoubtedly one of the best, most expensive and gnarliest survival films ever. Technically it's an absolutely flawless film, not even the biggest nerd can fault anything here. The cinematography is breathtaking, it's filmed very authentically almost without editing and at times you feel like you are right in the action. The very raw, uncompromising and chilling scenery adds a lot. Leonardo DiCaprio gives a performance of a lifetime, here he reaches the very bottom of his powers and crawls for the Oscar for the whole 2 hours 30 (although he overacts at times, but what the guy is capable of for a golden bald man is unbelievable). This is also true of Tom Hardy, who plays a spineless motherfucker from start to finish. I'd also highlight the scenes that take your breath away, the raw and brutal action (although there could have been a bit more of it), the final Hardy/Dicaprio duel, who give each other a decent thrashing and the sleeping bag made of a horse (vegetarians and horse lovers will probably rave). The downside is the slower pace, which may bore some, but Alejandro González Iñárritu undoubtedly wanted to fight for the Oscars, so there must be a piece of art here. It didn't blow my mind, but The Revenant is a must see on the big screen! Precise, fierce, raw and star-studded! Story 8/10, Atmosphere 10/10, Gore 8/10, Visuals 10/10, Action 5/10, Suspense 8/10, Humour 4/10. Entertainment 7/10. 85% I was hesitating between 4/5, in the end I give a full score. (18/01/2016)

One hundred and fifty minutes of art that offers real physical adventure in only two battles. There's clearly something wrong with a film where you spend most of the runtime thinking about the freezing crew on the other side of the camera. I haven't seen something so "wanted" in a long time. Just hand over the coveted statue and let this one fall in as technically honest and damn difficult filmmaking, which perhaps nobody even cares about in the end. PS: Hardy beats DiCaprio by a dead bear and half a horse. (02/01/2016)

As long as during the first 30 minutes we capture the amazing promo reel of Lubezki's camera, which equilibristically flows through the space between panoramic and contact shots, it's captivating. But then comes the need to tell a story and work with the characters, and the master of shallowness Alejandro is suddenly back with everything that it encompasses. The means of storytelling diverts attention from what is told to us. The film has an incredibly-compiled screenplay full of coincidences, which is supposed to be based on ultra-realism, but in fact is constantly slipping out of it towards an attempt at a metaphysical anti-western. The symbolic plane, the game with landscape and flashy symbols, is so superficial and clueless that it’s shameful. Although Leo breathes like a frightened mule and practices the crawling lessons he learned in The Wolf of Wall Street, he basically has no acting to do (I was almost sorry for him during the scene in the ruined temple). The film becomes a superficial high school exercise in Jack London's tenacity, which, thanks to a number of physical details, unfortunately grows into a parody of itself - Glass is Iron Man between trappers and Meresiev of the 19th century. It is not a celebration of the tenacity of man, but of the superfluous ego of a creator who puts himself above the story and the character as a dubious god. Revenant is a rare spectacle, an intellectual exploitation and a film that brings nothing more than magnificent filming of landscapes and action. Otherwise, it's a boring camping guide and a college of starting fires. Where there is nothing, not even the tinder burns. Metaphysics for the poor from the grizzly among the overrated filmmakers. P.S. The bear takes it all, the best CGI scene ever. [50%] (05/01/2016)

There aren't many of these realistically dirty, narratively unkempt films that feel like the filmmakers have actually gone back 200 years, and actually I can't remember any from the last few years. Raw action, where you can feel the blood and pain, physical contact fights taken in one long shot, and beautiful visual compositions of breathtaking nature; and snow and mud and filthy actors everywhere – the film crew must have had their fun too. The simple story doesn't hurt at all, because it goes to the heart of the characters and their physical and mental hardships. The complete opposite of the mannerist, self-absorbed Birdman, where I didn't care about the characters' fates at all. Together with Sicario, the best film of 2015. (02/01/2016)