The Revenant is the new Leonardo DiCaprio wilderness survival movie from director Alejandro Inaritu who made Birdman last year. This is a long, grueling film depicting a Man vs. Nature storyline at its most primal. All filmed in location in the grayest, most dour parts of the west (I think in Canada but depicting the American west of the 1820s)… apparently all with natural light, on location, and in the most Leonardo DiCaprio-torturing ways. See Leo fall in real rivers, tromp through real snow, and generally get the piss kicked out of him.

So from a technical stance, this is some of the best film making you’ll see. It looks amazing and they go for these long, impossible to film-yet-filmed long single takes (probably with cuts they very cleverly hide). So you’ll have an opening attack by a Native American warriors on fur trappers that appears to be done without a single camera cut. Or that long bear attack in the trailers. It’s a remarkable technical achievement on top of the amazing camera work and cinematography.

The basic premise is that DiCaprio is a guide for these fur trappers when they are attacked and they flee. On the way back, DiCaprio’s character is mauled by a bear and then, after a series of incidents, left to die by Tom Hardy’s character. Only he doesn’t die, he crawls out of his grave and across the wilderness with a will to survive (and revenge).

And here’s the problem with the movie… it’s two hours of raw survival and force of will… and then it has a Hollywood ending. Minor spoiler here – but this is a revenge movie – so our hero, who survives endless days of cold, misery, and pain, has to get his Hollywood revenge. It’s like if the characters in the movie Everest finally made it back to base camp, surviving the ravages of a blizzard atop the world’s tallest peak, and then decide to have a fist fight. I didn’t buy this part of the story and found it frustrating the guy just doesn’t take a long hot bath and got himself some chicken noodle soup. The movie is about what a person can go through to survive, not the dumb things he does to risk his life.

That said, DiCaprio is really good with his “how many ways can I look like I’m suffering” performance (pro-top: a lot) and Tom Hardy is the best he’s ever been as a reprehensible excuse for a human being. A+ for his performance in a movie that probably didn’t need it, not in my book anyway.

So, yeah, despite the negatives, I still think this is a good movie. The bits that I didn’t like so much are trumped by the technical virtuosity of the film making, the fine acting, and the the overall man-vs-nature story. Check it out, perhaps with the strong possibility that maybe what I didn’t like will be exactly what you do like. I wouldn’t be surprised.

Score: 85