Probably not a bad film on a technical standpoint. The acting is fine, the action (What little there is) is fine, the effects are fine, the fighting is brutal and it is, on occasion, fun to see what method of survival Hugh Glass uses sometimes. The part where he carves up a horse to sleep inside it for warmth was interesting.
The problem comes when the film just doesn?t DO much. I found myself mentally screaming ?DO SOMETHING? at the movie. Not at the actors or characters, just at the movie itself.
It once lingered on a shot of a waterfall. Not a far shot, mind you. A very, very close one. After a brief shot signifying that the explorers are moving on from a wounded Hugh Glass, the movie pans over to some water. It holds for about ten seconds before cutting to some snow and foliage for another ten straight seconds.
After Hugh recovers slightly it cuts to a sky shot for twenty agonizing seconds while you hear DiCaprio breathing into a mic.
The shot itself is wonderful but it?s so goddamn slow, nothing is happening, and there?s no real point. Nothing. Is. Happening.
DO SOMETHING, MOVIE.
To compare: Matt Damon?s Bourne series. At one point he is shot at, rushes through a store, bandages himself up during a car chase, and then gets hit by another car. He then trudges off.
It?s a fair point to note that The Revenant is going for a more realistic approach (Despite Hugh Glass?s legendary badass status) and Bourne is a literal super-soldier, but I?m just making the point of how the movie flows. The Revenant has no flow. The beginning is great, and the finale is actually quite awesome during the final confrontation. However the road is one screeching halt after another.
It mostly comes in the form of some Native Americans looking for a lost daughter. So they?re shown to be a sort of ?storm? that the hero has to avoid from time to time, and that?s what keeps him moving. So we get about one minute of pure action (A horse chase where he shoots some dudes) only to fall off yet another cliff, suffer some more wounds, and then hide inside a horse for some new slow mountain views and maybe the odd hallucination here and there.
It?s like the movie doesn?t trust its own competency when there?s actual fighting going on. It just wants to get it out of the way to show more closeups of Hugh?s wounded body.
It had a few charming moments (I liked the part where he and another wanderer were catching snowflakes with their tongues) but ultimately I was bored throughout most of the movie. I just wanted it to move on.
I?m perfectly willing to admit that this is a personal discovery: Apparently I simply do not like survival movies. I?ll make a permanent note of this whenever I plan on going out to the movies in the future.
