Blockbluster: The Revenant

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Blockbluster: The Revenant

Postby Dr. Ambiguous » Tue Jan 26, 2016 8:10 am

Quick Summary: Loosely based on a true story, a group of frontiersman in the 1820’s have things go wrong towards the end of a fur trading expedition. The core of the story centers around revenge, and how far one man will go to get it.
Score: 7.5/10
Genre: Adventure / Drama / Thriller
Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu
Cast: Leonardo DeCaprio, Tom Hardy, Will Poulter
Length: 156 min
Release Date: 2015-12-25 (USA Limited Release), 2016-01-08 (USA Wide Release), 2016-01-15 (UK)
More Info: IMDb

The Revenant – Official Trailer (Spoilers)

The first trailer I saw for The Revenant didn’t tell me anything about the film (it was different than the one from above), but somehow, despite it mostly consisting of people running through the woods and heavy breathing (and not the sexy kind), it was enough to pique my interest. This meant that I managed to go into the film knowing nothing about it, except that it takes place in winter and involved a bear. For me, it’s ideal to know as little as possible about a film before seeing it.

The film’s set in the 1820’s and features a group of frontiersman nearing the end of a fur trading expedition. It opens with the group working at their camp when they’re suddenly attacked by Native Americans. The film gets off to a very strong start, with a beautifully shot battle, featuring plenty of long shots between cuts. Ever since watching the fantastic Birdman a year ago, I’ve become a sucker for long shots (for those who haven’t seen Birdman, it’s done as if it’s one long shot the entire time. It wasn’t filmed in a single take, and it’s edited together, but it allows for some phenomenal cinematography). While Revenant doesn’t feature any shots that go on for as long as Birdman, the amount of the long extended shots and how beautiful they looked brought that film to mind. I didn’t learn until later that both films were directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu. I haven’t seen his work other than those two films, but I’m certainly interested in viewing them now.

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It’s not just the extended shots that look great, though. All the shots look amazing. Iñárritu made it a point to shoot the film using only natural light and not using any CGI to enhance the film. The filming also involved many very difficult shots (I did marvel at times during the film “How the hell did they manage that shot?”) and led to many crew members either quitting or getting fired. In the end, it was worth it, as the film looks beautiful.

However, the film features more than just great camera work. Leonardo DeCaprio and Tom Hardy both give stellar performances. DeCaprio plays the lead role of Hugh Glass (minor spoilers ahead), a man who is left for dead by his companions after being mauled by a bear. Hardy plays John Fitzgerald, the character who clashes often with Glass. I’ll avoid going into too much detail, but events between these two characters are the catalyst for the revenge that takes center stage for most of the film’s duration. DeCaprio has been getting most of the buzz for his performance, and while he’s excellent in the film, I actually think that Hardy shines a bit brighter.

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The plot of the film is fairly sparse, it being a pretty straightforward revenge flick. I love revenge flicks: for some reason, the concept of vengeance is fascinating to me. The Revenant doesn’t deal with the morals of revenge like I Saw The Devil, nor is it as complex as anything from Park Chan-wook’s Vengeance Trilogy (fun fact: Chan-wook was initially signed on to direct the film way back in 2001, with Sam motherfucking Jackson playing the lead role. As much as I love both Chan-wook and Sam Jackson, I’m not sure if I’d actually prefer that. It would have been a very different film to say the least). However, thanks to the great directing and superb acting, the movie manages to stay gripping and culminates in a very strong finale. It does falter some along the way, namely in that its 156-minute runtime is slightly excessive, though the pros certainly outweigh the cons.

A big component of the film is Glass’ predisposition for survival, and while that’s all well and good, it did stretch my suspension of disbelief more than a few times. This is also where the film tends to deviate from reality a bit more, as while the real-life Glass managed to survive an incredible ordeal, the film also features quite a bit that he didn’t actually undergo (as far as I can tell from a brief amount of research, at least). Minor spoilers ahead, but while he did manage to actually survive a bear attack, he didn’t recover nearly as quickly, having to crawl a good chunk of the way back, and even fashion a raft (he was about 200 miles / 320 km from the nearest American settlement). He also had to let maggots feast on his dead, infected flesh to prevent it from getting worse and rotting. However, the biggest difference is that Glass didn’t have a son in real life (at least not on the expedition with him), whereas in the film Glass’ son plays a fairly prominent role.

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Despite some minor shortcomings, and a slightly overlong runtime, The Revenant is still a very good film. 2015 was a pretty weak year for movies, so hopefully 2016 will fare better and The Revenant helps get things off on the right foot.
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Re: Blockbluster: The Revenant

Postby KleinerKiller » Tue Jan 26, 2016 3:16 pm

The only thing I didn't enjoy about this one was the ungodly runtime. I'd gotten four hours of sleep the night before and only managed to catch a showing at 9:40 pm, so trying to stay awake through most of the second act wasn't a fun time. The climax definitely made up for it, though.

Dr. Ambiguous wrote:2015 was a pretty weak year for movies, so hopefully 2016 will fare better


Weird. For me, 2015 was one of the strongest years for movies in recent memory. We got Fury Road, Force Awakens, The Martian, Ex Machina, Dope (which far too few people saw), The Gift, and a couple dozen other well-regarded ones I didn't personally catch.
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Re: Blockbluster: The Revenant

Postby Dr. Ambiguous » Wed Jan 27, 2016 2:41 am

KleinerKiller wrote:
Dr. Ambiguous wrote:2015 was a pretty weak year for movies, so hopefully 2016 will fare better


Weird. For me, 2015 was one of the strongest years for movies in recent memory. We got Fury Road, Force Awakens, The Martian, Ex Machina, Dope (which far too few people saw), The Gift, and a couple dozen other well-regarded ones I didn't personally catch.

For me, 2015 had only two great movies: Fury Road and Sicario. After that it had some good films, Black Mass, The Martian, Bridge of Spies, Spotlight, The Hateful Eight, Ex-Machina, Inside Out. Then some good, but nothing special films, Ant-Man, Age of Ultron, Kingsman. and a few others. (IMO Force Awakens is an okay movie that's setting up a series that has a lot more potential than the movie itself managed to live up to).

On the surface that doesn't sound too bad, but in 2014 we had Nightcrawler, Birdman, Gone Girl, Interstellar, Whiplash, Imitation Game, Frank, Winter Soldier, Guardians of The Galaxy, and Big Hero 6. I realize that's a shorter list, but that's due simply to me seeing more new movies in 2015 than the year before. The key thing, for me, is that the 2014 list manages to be a lot stronger, despite being shorter. I'd consider at least 4 or 5 of those great films.

I realize it's just a matter of taste and preference, but I still think that 2015 was a weak year quality-wise, despite being the biggest year at the box office ever.
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Re: Blockbluster: The Revenant

Postby BROWNRECLUSE » Mon Feb 01, 2016 1:35 am

Eric's mom put an absolute ass whoopin' on Leo. Brutality rarely seen on film.
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Re: Blockbluster: The Revenant

Postby JamishT » Mon Feb 01, 2016 7:01 am

BROWNRECLUSE wrote:Eric's mom put an absolute ass whoopin' on Leo. Brutality rarely seen on film.


I didn't really like the bear attack, it was rather poorly done in my opinion. I remember being confused at first because it didn't look like the bear's claws were actually touching Glass, and then the jaws bit into the tiniest bit of his jacket to sling him around.
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Re: Blockbluster: The Revenant

Postby BROWNRECLUSE » Mon Feb 01, 2016 3:25 pm

I think I was more disturbed by the horse murder in this film.

Seriously, if they tried to film this back in the 30's, live horses would have been shot and thrown off cliffs.
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Re: Blockbluster: The Revenant

Postby blehblah » Wed Apr 13, 2016 1:36 pm

I enjoyed this film. I ignored the 'based on a true story' bit as these days, I barely believe what I see in documentaries, so entertainment films are just that; pure entertainment. Before watching it, I had not managed to avoid the 'real story behind the movie' articles, but that didn't spoil anything for me. Within the first five minutes of the film, how things will play-out is obvious, but that's okay.

One fault, at least in my humble opinion, is that the film works hard to emphasize the gigantic scope of Glass' journey, yet they continuously burst that bubble by making the untamed frontier seem like a corner store in a Kevin Smith movie. I get that everyone in the film is a super-in-tune-with-nature-uber-tracker-frontier-primal-animal-human, but I found myself being removed from immersion by expecting to see Mantracker ride-up on his horse and tell a character, "He went that way, about one day, six hours, forty-five minutes, twenty-one seconds ago; I can tell by how the snowflakes are bent."

I agree with Ambi that the acting was superb. Being an older guy, Leo is still a baby-faced, precocious young lad to me, but nevertheless, he can still pull me into his presentation of complex characters like Glass, whats-his-face in Wolf of Wall Street, or Howard Hughes. Glass' character was sparse on dialogue (on account of Eric's mom) but still had depth. I know he finally bagged an Oscar for this role, but somehow I think he has done better before (Hughes, for example), though that's setting the bar pretty high.

Ambi absolutely hit the nail on the head when it comes to Hardy. Damn, Tom, that was some fine acting. Hardy is hitting home runs like it ain't no thing. He's got the jawbone of an (mad m)action hero, yet can go full chameleon and portray someone you'd sooner smack around than follow. While Leo deserved the make-up Oscar for past snubs, Hardy provided, by far, the most compelling performance in this film. It's a bit unfair since the script gave him loads more to work with, but, damn, Tom... just... damn. Go check his IMDb page - dude is like Frank's hotsauce - that shit is in everything. If he has a theme going, it's subdued menace, and he does it very, very well.

On the extended cuts, Ambi, you must giggle with joy when you watch Children of Men and Goodfellas.

My final conclusion is that someone needs to write something, anything, that includes Hardy, Clive Own, Colin Firth, and Peter Dinklage. Hell, they could remake Beyond Thunderdome, and it would be fantastic.
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