The Revenant [Movie Review]

I'm really digging seeing movies on the cheap. It lets me see movies that I either missed in the general theaters, was on the fence about seeing, or... something I'm not thinking of at the moment. Anyways, seeing movies on the super cheap has been great.

Revenant: one who has returned, as if from the dead.

I should also mention that I very rarely see the best picture nominees. This movie took Best Cinematography, Actor, and Director... so it didn't take best picture. (In fact the only Best Picture nominees from the 88th Academy Awards I saw were Mad Max: Fury Road and The Martian.) But I digress.

4.5 out of 5 stars

This movie absolutely deserved Best Cinematography.
It was hauntingly beautiful.

This movie was not what I was expecting. I'm not certain what I was expecting... but it was not this. I do not mean story-wise. The story was what I was expecting, for the most part. I've played enough DnD in my lifetime to be familiar with what a Revenant is. Of course in DnD a Revenant is usually some undead knight thing returned to seek vengeance upon those who wronged it in life... oh, wait... that is exactly what this movie means by Revenant too.

Mostly.

Scenes like this are what really make this movie amazing.

Fantastic Makeup and Costuming.

Let me list off what I was expecting from the movie.

- I was expecting in someways an apologetic bit about Native Americans. We do not get this, instead we get a slice of what it was most likely really like back then. There are no innocent people. The Americans are assholes, the French are assholes, the Ree (Arikara) are Assholes, the Sioux are assholes (in passing only), the Union Army are assholes. Everyone is an asshole. Only the Pawnee are not assholes, that we see. It's gritty, and uncompromising in its depiction of people - people have more than one side, some do terrible things for the right reasons, others do the right thing for selfish reasons. Some are taken advantage of, and others take advantage. There was real depth to the characters. So it was not an apology piece - and it is probably better for that.   

The only other actors I knew in the movie aside from
DiCaprio: Domhnall Gleeson and Tom Hardy.

Perhaps the only light-hearted scene in the film.

- I was expecting the white men to be the main villains. This is mostly accurate - but see above. There is depth. Not every white man is an asshole, but a lot are. There are several particularly despicable characters. However, they are not the only villains. The Ree (Arikawa) are also rather villainous (despite their reasons - their methods certainly cast them in the role of the antagonist).

- I expected our hero to end up near death in a completely different manner than was shown. The method shown was far more brutal than I expected. Now there is a corollary here - I did not really see any previews for this film. So if the previews showed the brutality that occurred, I was lucky. For me it was utterly shocking and very gruesome. 

- I expected a louder movie. I always expect loud movies. In fact I expect most movies to be Whisper-Boom movies (low dialogue - ear shattering explosions). This movie was filled with silence - and where there was no silence, it was filled with the sounds of nature. Dialogue is not what this movie was about. This movie is a masterpiece of tone. So much is told in expression and intention. Imagery and movement. The film is a breathtaking cinematic spectacle.

This was a fantastic film.
This was a brutal and violent film.
This was a serene film.
This was a meditative film.

This film was a meditation on violence, or perhaps on vengeance.

This is one of those movies I'm very glad to have seen once, but I will probably never see again. It was too cold, too real. The brutality was palpable, the violence visceral. The scenery majestic, and the structure was meditative.

DiCaprio more than earned Best Actor for this.

A mountain of skulls.
Chilling.