The Revenant 2015
This is a terrible movie. Not poorly made or acted, but terrible to watch as the main character has to struggle through horrible injuries and conditions. This story of one man’s struggle against the elements seems to have become a genre of movie lately, starting maybe with Cast Away, Gravity, and The Martian. But while The Martian took a lighter approach, The Revenenant goes much darker. Take some gross-out scene like when Rambo has to stitch up his arm or The Terminator sews his eye shut, and that’s this whole movie. The movie takes place in the Montana winter, which makes for horribly harsh conditions even today. So on top of being injured, shot at, starving, and with no supplies, it is also incredibly cold. The scenery is pretty and the director throws in a lot of shots of the gorgeous countryside or snow melting from the trees, but the overall tone of the movie is one of despair. There is very little dialogue, and most of Leonardo DiCaprio’s lines consist of grunts and groans. The question is whether watching something beautiful and difficult is really entertainment. I knew it would be a tough movie to watch, but I think it errs by being less the story of a man overcoming obstacles and instead is mostly about the obstacles themselves with very little sense of triumph at the accomplishment.
Since the movie is based on a true story, you can go back and read the story of Hugh Glass and it is absolutely amazing, but the movie throws in a whole lot more, even stuff that was not in the 2002 book on which the movie is based. It seems like they lay it on way too thick to me, so I can only give this movie a B-.
Written: 09 Jan 2016
Owned on: Digital