The Revenant: Spoilers Tagged For Now

[Jace, Extat]

Great film, only thing I didn't like was that Leo and Tom Hardy didn't team up for an all-time shirtless dance duo to establish a franchise.

For serious, I loved it. I was worried going in that it was going to be too graphic and/or violent from the way people were carrying on, and that wasn't the case at all in my opinion. Don't get me wrong, it's graphic as all hell, but I was half expecting 'Saw: Northern Wilderness'. Also, I kept hearing that Leo gets raped by a bear which really made me hesitant to watch. Total bullshit, thank Chryst, I just wanted to debunk that real quick in case anyone else had heard such nonsense.

Still spoiler free, it really was terrific. It felt real, I think because it was real. You can see the suffering in the characters' eyes, and every frame is a painting of practical effects. The film never took me out of that hostile state of mind with your typical sweeping shots of scenery that shows you the beauty of the land, quite the opposite in fact. Every frame emphasizes 'YOU COULD NOT SURVIVE THIS!' in an almost matter-of-fact way without losing focus on the characters. There was I don't think a single scene in which I said 'oh, I'd like to go there' or 'that seems like fun'. The only part of the movie in which someone smiles left me thinking 'oh my Chryst, that's all that's left for him to smile about'. That being said though, it wasn't depressing or monotonous without your standard comedic relief. Which is another thing that ties into the content concerns I had. I couldn't watch it with the BF, and I was afraid that I'd be left really sadfaced all night and wouldn't be able to sleep.

It felt long (because it is), but I actually thought it seemed intentional based on the editing and the fact that it should feel long. This isn't a 'oh, hero finds his way' movie, it's about survival and revenge so I definitely liked the inexorable pacing. I'll get to another reason why it feels long in a moment.

Acting was great for the most part, some weaknesses (especially earlier on), but that's almost entirely attributable to the way it was shot. I mean, if Leo can't get the statue after this in a weak year then the only thing they'll ever give him is a lifetime achievement award in 20 years. Tom Hardy was just terrific as usual.

Effects were fantastic. I only saw 1 (and maybe a 2nd) CGI and it looked great while being completely reasonable CG application even for this film. Really can't say enough about the effects, but I'm done talking about them.

Editing. This was my FAVORITE part of the movie. Uncut shots. And I'm talking loooooooooong and dense scenes that are one continuous shot. It really effects every part of the film. The long scenes without cuts feel heavy and important. The actors get to flourish and seem very natural except for a few instances with supporting cast. The action was very easy to follow and had great focus. Now that's not to say that every scene is 5 minutes of steadycam or shot on the cheap, obviously there's shot reverse shot and standard editing techniques are used, but this movie has 3 or 4 scenes that tell 'Goodfellas' to go fuck itself.

I mean, it was great. Beats 'Mad Max' for my favorite film of the year, and I think it's pretty easily the best I've seen in 2015.

It's great, I'd recommend it 11 times out of 11 as long as you understand you're not going to see Star Wars and you're ok with that. People get fucked up in this movie and do extreme things to stay alive, it's not torture porn like Saw, but there's some gruesome shit without a doubt so if you can't handle that then it's probably not for you. But if you've seen Game of Thrones, I'm going to venture that you can handle this.

Yeah, I think that's it for now. Let's keep spoilers in tags for a while at least, and I'm interested in what you guys thought.

 

[Lord Hanna]

Snip

Well, this convinced me to watch it. I was on the fence, i love Leo and usually his movies are great but the trailer did not grab me like most do. 

 

But you managed to convince me. 

[dooog]

Definitely one of the best movies of 2015. About 40 minutes in I was thinking it could be one of my all time favourites but it did drag a little and had a weakish final act.

Also Tom Hardy... great actor but his diction was quite indistinct and I was struggling to understand him

[kuenjato]

Loved it. Not as much as Mad Max, but this was an intense and beautiful experience, with direction that is almost mind-boggling in sequences... especially given that they filmed it all in natural light. Which apparently necessitated a ton of rehersal and helped balloon the budget.

[Kindly Old Man]

I wrote a bit about this in the Watched thread. Basically I can respect what they did here, but it didn't affect me very much. I thought Hardy's performance and even the kid's were more impactful than Leo's. I agree with this article: I don't care how hard it was to make the Revenant.

[Ramsay B.]

I thought it was great. I heard it dragged at times but I didn't really think that was the case despite how long it was. I thought the acting was pretty solid overall, especially Hardy. The bear scene was pretty damn intense, it's pretty amazing all the shit Leo's character went through. Although I usually like spiritual/nature shots, they did kind of go overboard with them here.

I'd give it a 8.5/10.

[Starkess]

I thought it could have used a little paring down. It was a bit long and there seemed to be an unintentional meandering to it, as if it couldn't decide what the actual plot was. Hardy was spectacular, Leo was okay. Thought the interactions with the Ree did not make a lot of sense, and could have done without seeing one of the film's only females 

get violently raped.

Although I suppose that it was far from the worst thing that happened.

Really beautiful shots, probably my favorite thing about the movie. 

[Howdyphillip]

 The acting was superb, the plot of the movie is a very good tried and true revenge tale, and was written accordingly. The setting was unique and interesting. 

 All of that said, Alejandro González Iñárritu absolutely screwed this movie up. The way he shot this movie was a distraction to the story and performances. If he would have limited himself to a few shots of incredibly tall trees from the ground, it would have established that the surroundings were bigger than the characters, and we could have understood this moving forward. He went to that well so many times, it became a distraction. Half of the movie was filmed by someone crawling through the mud looking up.

 Not to mention that his "natural lighting" techniques are not only stupid, but cost actual people working on the film tons of heartaches. He obviously used bounces. If you are changing color temperature for your shot, it makes absolutely no difference to the eye how this is done. His inability to understand light also was problematic in the film as well, as there were a lot of scenes that were frankly too dark.

 This brings me to my final quip about his directing and choice of photography. Use a longer lens dude. Scene after scene was shot of close ups to the actor. In almost every close up shot, the actors breath actually fogged the lens. Some people may call this "art". I call it taking me out of the story and letting me know there is a cameraman in the equation. If you want to include this once for "art's sake", then fine, I will sit for it, but if that is your choice throughout the movie, the camera becomes involved in the story as a player.

  

[Nictarion]

Couldn't disagree more. This was stunningly gorgeous from start to finish. No suprise considering Lebezki was the DP. I fully expect him to have the three-peat at the Oscars  (Gravity, Birdman, Revenant). Which is impressive to say the least. Other than Richard Deakins nobody even comes close to the work he's doing. 

[Howdyphillip]

Couldn't disagree more. This was stunningly gorgeous from start to finish. No suprise considering Lebezki was the DP. I fully expect him to have the three-peat at the Oscars  (Gravity, Birdman, Revenant). Which is impressive to say the least. Other than Richard Deakins nobody even comes close to the work he's doing. 

Out of those three movies, I would say only Gravity was shot well, and that is because Curron obviously had his ideas already story boarded. 

The camera became a bit of a distraction in Birdman. The Oscars screwed up. While Michael Keaton should have won best actor of the year, Birdman was not the best movie. I think the same thing will happen to Leonardo DiCaprio this year. There isn't a better acting performance this year, but there are certainly better movies. Seeing as I have Hardy for a lock, I actually think both the film (justly), and the lead actor (unjustly), will get the snub,

[Jack Bauer 24]

Toss up between this and Force Awakens for my movie of the year.

[WarGalley]

Saw it and enjoyed it. As someone who hiked Patagonia and Yosemite in the past year -- I loved the nature shots and want to plan a camping trip now. I didn't think this was a Best Picture winner type of movie though. Nor do I think Leo was particularly good. Not bad, but not exceptional. Come to think of it, I don't know who else I'd give the award too.. Hardy was great and rivals Del Toro's performance in Sicario for me. Didn't think this movie was anywhere near as violent as it was made out to be. 

 

This brings me to my final quip about his directing and choice of photography. Use a longer lens dude. Scene after scene was shot of close ups to the actor. In almost every close up shot, the actors breath actually fogged the lens. Some people may call this "art". I call it taking me out of the story and letting me know there is a cameraman in the equation. If you want to include this once for "art's sake", then fine, I will sit for it, but if that is your choice throughout the movie, the camera becomes involved in the story as a player.

There were only a couple of scenes where I recall that happening but quite agree about the camera lens fogging up being detrimental to the movie watching experience. It definitely took me out of the movie. Didn't quite think the director was being too selfish or pretentious at the time.. but in hindsight, I can kind of see that. Or maybe he just needs to lay off the fascination with the camera a bit.  

One additional note: All those times Leo and company went into the water, even when they were just wading, had me cringing. That water is snowmelt from the mountain tops.. it's fucking freezing. I could barely cross a river barefoot during a hike in Alaska in June. I can't imagine what floating in that river was like for Leo.. 

[Mark Antony]

Hardy was great and rivals Del Toro's performance in Sicario for me... 

My two favorite performances of the year (along with Goggins in H8).

I saw Revenant earlier and really liked it. I have to echo everyone who thought Hardy was better than Leo, he was the absolute highlight of the movie for me. My only real problem was some of the Leo shit really dragged in the second half. 

[Kindly Old Man]

Didn't quite think the director was being too selfish or pretentious at the time.. but in hindsight, I can kind of see that. Or maybe he just needs to lay off the fascination with the camera a bit.  

Some Inarritu quotes on the Revenant: 

“This film deserves to be watched in a temple,” he told Financial Times.

 “I don’t consider [my] film a Western,” he explained. “Western is in a way a genre, and the problem with genres is that it comes from the word ‘generic’, and I feel that this film is very far from generic.”

The second quote has the added virtue of being wrong in addition to being pretentious. 

Bonus quote talking about superhero movies during a Birdman interview:

"They have been poison, this cultural genocide, because the audience is so overexposed to plot and explosions and shit that doesn’t mean nothing about the experience of being human."

[Nictarion]

Suprised so many people feel Hardy was better than Leo. Leo had the much harder role considering how little dialogue he had. I thought he was great with his body language and facial expressions.

Hardy was good, really good even  (although his dialect was a bit dodgy at times), but I thought Leo was better. And certainly deserves the Oscar. I haven't seen a lead performance I liked better from last year. 

[Vels]

This movie was hardcore. Maybe I've been watching too many Marvel movies but the scenes kinda shocked me!

I felt that Hardy had the better presence in this film - I just wish he would stop mumbling! 

I enjoyed the scenery shots - I interpreted that as nature saying "no matter what you humans do and no matter what you think is important I'm just gonna keep on doing my thing"

[Howdyphillip]

Suprised so many people feel Hardy was better than Leo. Leo had the much harder role considering how little dialogue he had. I thought he was great with his body language and facial expressions.

Hardy was good, really good even  (although his dialect was a bit dodgy at times), but I thought Leo was better. And certainly deserves the Oscar. I haven't seen a lead performance I liked better from last year. 

I agree with this, but I still think that there isn't a better supporting actor this year than Hardy. He was miles ahead of the competition, while Leonardo may be just slightly above his. He still deserves the best actor award for this role, but I am fairly certain he is going to get snubbed. 

[dooog]

Suprised so many people feel Hardy was better than Leo. Leo had the much harder role considering how little dialogue he had. I thought he was great with his body language and facial expressions.

Hardy was good, really good even  (although his dialect was a bit dodgy at times), but I thought Leo was better. And certainly deserves the Oscar. I haven't seen a lead performance I liked better from last year. 

I thought Leo did fine in the movie, not exceptional though. The fact that he's a forerunner for Best Actor this year goes to show how weak the competition is.

In fact from 2015, Spotlight is the only movie i'd even consider having a chance of beating Birdman, Whiplash et al. to a Best Picture award.

I agree with this, but I still think that there isn't a better supporting actor this year than Hardy. He was miles ahead of the competition, while Leonardo may be just slightly above his. He still deserves the best actor award for this role, but I am fairly certain he is going to get snubbed. 

Mark Rylance imo. Great performance in an otherwise average Bridge of Spies

[Mark Antony]

Suprised so many people feel Hardy was better than Leo. Leo had the much harder role considering how little dialogue he had. I thought he was great with his body language and facial expressions.

Hardy was good, really good even  (although his dialect was a bit dodgy at times), but I thought Leo was better. And certainly deserves the Oscar. I haven't seen a lead performance I liked better from last year. 

I actually think Leo deserves best actor this year but it's a really weak year for that award. I agree his physical acting was insane but idk I just couldn't help but still see Leo whereas I felt Hardy completely disappeared into his role. 

I saw someone on another site say that Viggo Mortensen would have been perfect for the lead and I can't get it out of my head how awesome that would have been  

[polishgenius]

Seems I'm the opposite to a few people here (well, at least to Howdyphillip). I thought the performances were very good, but I don't think they're going to go down as legendary apart from for how hard a time DiCaprio had shooting it. The plot was fine, I like a good revenger, but that's all it is- what elevates it is the direction. Yes, it's very ostentatious, but I have as much time for that as for a totally unobtrusive camera. I like theatricality (Terrence Malick, at least pre-ToL Malick, is one of my favourite directors, and there was a lot of him in this, despite the intensity and open violence that Malick tends to shun). The whole thing looked and felt absolutely stunning. I'm very glad I saw it in the cinema.

ps was I the only one, or did the opening attack feel a great deal like the opening of Saving Private Ryan?


I do wish Inarritu wouldn't talk, though.