Leonardo DiCaprio gets revenge in The Revenant

[Anita18]

Journalist: *throws entitled hissy fit, publicly s***ting on Hardy repeatedly*
Tom Hardy: *fires back*
Journalist: God, you're such a bully.

All I can say about that whole kerfuffle is that I'm so glad some men in my life don't have to do that s***. Everyone would think they were utter a-holes.

 

[Octoberist]

It's one of those things where I feel like McWeeny should've kept Hardy's name out of his rant. The other is that, it doesn't excuse the Hardy Party.

I can see Hardy being super difficult. It's kinda cool if you're a fan of his, but if you gotta wait 3 hours for him, and he doesn't show up, then I would a little eh on him too. And according to McWeeny, Tommy has made publicists cry, and I for the life of me, can't see why anyone would do such a thing.

 

[Schlosser85]

With both their penchant for weird monologues, somebody needs to hook up Hardy and Tarantino.

 

[Loden Greatstorm]

How are the reviews so far?

 

[Gee]

TV spots have been playing a lot lately. That cinematography, though...

How are the reviews so far?

81% on RT with 101 reviews (avg. rating of 8/10).

 

[Urich Leeds]

So I watched this last night. I thought it was pretty good. It didn't quite live up to the hype, but it was good.

The story and characters were very run of the mill, but its elevated by the very word heavy and virtually wordless performances of Tom Hardy and Leonardo DiCaprio as John Fitzgerald and Hugh Glass.

And they're supported well by Domhnall Gleeson and Will Poulter, the latter of the two having to react to and sell the savagery of Hardy's character by himself for a good deal of the film.

That said.... If it weren't for those four performing as well as they did in those roles, I don't think this film would work half as well as it did. It's unfortunate, but the actors sell the motivation and struggles of these characters better than the script does. Leo, having done so while barely saying a word. Now, that was more than likely the point; to show more than it told. That said, it just didn't tell enough for me. I never bought into the motivation and backstory of Hugh Glass as much as I did his struggle to achieve his goal of finding Fitzgerald. And considering that the former is the driving force of the film and the main character, that just shouldn't be.

On the technical side of things, Lubezki's cinematography is breathtaking. Everything about their approach to shooting this film, from the usage of natural light (which admittedly works better in some scenes than others) to the landscapes on which it was filmed, is fantastic. That said, alot of the shots in this film feel more like something out of a nature documentary, and simply exist for thr sake of looking pretty. Maybe that was the point, but alot of it seemed unnecessary.... even if it did look really, really good.

In regards to the direction, Inarritu is able to get fantastic performances from his actors across the board. There's not one poor performance in this film. So kudos to him.

Overall, I think this was a soIid effort all around. It was a bit over hyped, but it deserves the awards buzz it's getting. Though, I don't think it'll be able to stand up to the stiff competition, outside of the acting and cinematography categories.

7 out of 10.

 

[TheVileOne]

Here are my honest thoughts on the film. Good performances, technically and visually brilliant.

However, the story and third act were very weak. The subplots with the Native Americans were contrived and made no sense:

Spoiler

The Chief was looking for his daughter Powaqa, who was being kidnapped and violated by the French the whole time. Even though they went to the French camp and she was nowhere to be found. Then they do the whole training day bit with Glass ending up saving her and that's why he's spared at the end. None of that worked and that was all contrived.

I'm fine with the attempt to humanize the Native American and somewhat balance out how they feel about encroaching white and American settlers on the frontier. I just think how they filled out that subplot didn't work. I liked his friendship with the surviving Native American who helped shelter and heal him.

Here's my official review.

 

[Loden Greatstorm]

Seeing this tomorrow. Can't wait!

 

[4thWallBreaker]

Second favorite of 2015. Totally worth seeing.

 

[Marvolo]

How bad is the sexual assault scene and what does it involve? Trying to decide if its something Id want to watch with my dad.

 

[Schlosser85]

How bad is the sexual assault scene and what does it involve? Trying to decide if its something Id want to watch with my dad.

It's

Spoiler

a kidnapped Native American woman being raped by a French fur trapper. You see the woman pressed up against the tree with the guy thrusting behind her, with accompanying noises from both of them. It's pretty brief and you don't really "see" anything.

 

[Marvolo]

It's

Spoiler

a kidnapped Native American woman being raped by a French fur trapper. You see the woman pressed up against the tree with the guy thrusting behind her, with accompanying noises from both of them. It's pretty brief and you don't really "see" anything.

Oh ok. Thats not too bad then. Thanks for telling me.

How is the pace of the film?

 

[Dr. Manhatten]

This is a movie I really wanted to like but I just couldn't get into despite the amazing cinematography. The cinematography was the kind of work that deserves a better movie I feel, that it would've been legendary if there was an actual script to go with it.

The main thing I just couldn't get into was that I didn't care for DiCaprio or his character. The trials he has to go through are brutal but I didn't find him to be that interesting of a character. In fact, Tom Hardy and Poultier actually had the best material and their segments were the most engaging. It's such a dour, self serious movie that the pacing was atrocious for me, personally. If it was about 30 minutes shorter, I would've raised it up a few notches.

The Revenant: 5/10

 

[Schlosser85]

Oh ok. Thats not too bad then. Thanks for telling me.

How is the pace of the film?

The pace is sluggish, IMO.

It kicks off with a really thrilling action sequence (to me), then has the bear mauling a short time later, then the last 20 minutes or so are pretty tension-packed, but in between it gets pretty laborious at times.

There's looooots of long, long, lingering picturesque landscape shots (okay, Lubezki, we get it), and DiCaprio crawling through the woods.

 

[Stringer]

The pace is sluggish, IMO.

It kicks off with a really thrilling action sequence (to me), then has the bear mauling a short time later, then the last 20 minutes or so are pretty tension-packed, but in between it gets pretty laborious at times.

There's looooots of long, long, lingering picturesque landscape shots (okay, Lubezki, we get it), and DiCaprio crawling through the woods.

Exactly how I feel. The parts you expect to be good are good, but everything else is so boring. This really isn't the movie Dicaprio should get his Oscar for. Throughout its just Leo groaning, crawling, hurting, making a fire, eating raw food, looking cold, over and over. Huge disappointment in this movie.

 

[Schlosser85]

Leo really deserves kudos for being willing to commit to something so grueling, but it's not really an Oscar-worthy performance.

 

[Drizzle]

Leo really deserves kudos for being willing to commit to something so grueling, but it's not really an Oscar-worthy performance.

They might just give it to him anyway like they did with Al Pacino for "Scent of a Woman".

 

[Tacit Ronin]

His oscar worthy performance was in Wolf of Wall Street. That's a juggernaut of a performance.

 

[Drizzle]

I thought Django Unchained was his Oscar worthy performance. He played such a vile son of a *****, it was unlike anything we'd ever seen from him......and he wasn't even nominated for it.

 

[Tacit Ronin]

Django was a highly amusing, cartoonish performance. Hardly Oscar worthy. Jordan Bellford is simply the perfect summation of all of Leo's best qualities as an actor. I would be stunned if he ever tops it. The quaalude scene will be studied by humanity for eternity. A miracle captured in time.

 

[Black Narcissus]

Eh, I'd give him an Oscar for this. All the other potential nominees did nothing for me.

 

[Tacit Ronin]

I thought Damon was far superior at expressing his lonely journey through body language in the Martian. First class performance, magnetic performance that one.

 

[Marvolo]

The thing that I would think would set this performance apart from the pack is that Leo risked life and limb for this role. At times it was 40 below zero. He had the flu at one point during filming. He ate a raw bison liver. And he risked hypothermia. And through all that he still gave a performance. Idk whether the Academy will look at all that stuff, but its award worthy. Not many actors will go that far.

 

[Tacit Ronin]

What ultimately matters is what's on screen. What he went through behind the scenes makes for great special features, but his performance should speak for itself.

Marlon Brando showed up totally unmotivated and ill prepared for Apocalypse Now. He wouldn't even bother to memorize his lines. Yet still, he gave a striking performance as Colonel Kurtz, with what is one of the greatest monologues in film history.

If someone who had no idea about Apocalypse Now's behind the scenes troubles and particularly Brando's behavior, would be no more the wiser watching him on screen.

 

[Stringer]

I mean that's great and all, and I respect his dedication to do all that, but that makes it sound we got a "Leo survives harsh conditions" documentary rather than an embodied performance for a character.