dgranger Review of The Revenant

The Revenant (I) (2015)

Emotional, good performances, and effective but over long, self indulgent, and frankly, a bit boring.

[6/10 · 21 February 2016]

The title of this review sums it up almost perfectly. The film does have major strengths but also has major weaknesses. While intense at certain points, it gets as vague as hell in others which kills the narrative drive and tension of the film. Also, another problem with this is my age as in the I have lived long enough to have seen and remember films of similar stories and themes. With "The Revenant", I had felt like I was watching a variation of a theme that I had seen before. That is bad for a film because it jerks the viewer out of his enjoyment of the film. Every film should make you feel that you are seeing something new and unique even if it isn't. With me, I had thought I was watching a variation of "The Naked Prey (1965). While the Naked Prey film was set in Africa, the historical event that it is based on, Colter's Run, happened in North America, in Yellowstone park, just like The Revenant. And both Colter and Glass were guides and experienced mountain men. The stories were too similar. And it didn't help that I had just finished reading a novel that had mentioned Colter's Run shortly before seeing this movie. Bad timing on that. As far as acting goes, I was not particularly empressed by Dicaprio's performance and felt it was the weakest of the major players of the film. I thought Will Poulter's was the best and stole the show. Gleason and former child star, Lukas Haas, gave strong performances. Hardy was good, but frankly, there was points where I couldn't understand what the hell he was saying because the accent he had used was so thick and he had mumbled some of his lines. But in the end, the strength of the story and the directing did pull me in and I did feel emotion at what was happening on screen which a good film should do. So therefore, I say this film has both good points and weaknesses. I will say that if you are looking for a fast action packed film, this not the film for you since this film takes it's time (aka, "slow"), and builds towards it's ending that doesn't really pay out.