Movie Review: ‘The Revenant’ is breathtaking to look at but misses the emotional connection

MOVIE REVIEW: THE REVENANT (R)

“The Revenant” is one of the most breathtaking, awe-inspiring technical marvels of 2015, a motion picture that is almost as grueling and exhausting to experience as it was for director Alejandro González Iñárritu and crew to make. But for all its visual splendor, meticulous craftsmanship, and technical achievements, does “The Revenant” soar where it counts most? In other words, does the story measure up, and is this movie as emotionally satisfying as it is visually arresting? In my humble opinion, the answer to both questions is “no.”

Loosely based on a true story, “The Revenant” takes place in the 1820s and follows Hugh Glass, a frontiersman on a fur trading expedition who is left for dead in the middle of the vast wilderness following a vicious bear attack. With no one to turn to but himself, a wounded Glass attempts to survive while stuck in hostile territory and the most harsh of conditions. His will to survive is aided by his quest for vengeance against John Fitzgerald (played by Tom Hardy), a fellow fur trader who is as unpredictable as he is maniacal.

What can be said about Leonardo DiCaprio? Wow! This accomplished actor commits to “The Revenant” 100 percent. He gives his mind, body, and soul to the role of Glass. Having said that, a lot of what DiCaprio is doing here is reacting rather than acting. This isn’t to diminish his amazing work, though. Far from it. When he’s floating down a river and looks like he’s freezing cold, that’s because he is freezing cold. When he’s wincing in pain as he drags himself across the dirt and rocks, that’s because he’s actually in pain. He was so committed, in fact, that there’s been a running joke circulating that DiCaprio subjected himself to a real bear attack all in the name of art. Yes, sir. The man gives it his all in “The Revenant,” and what’s more, he has very little dialogue because he’s alone for a great deal of the proceedings (think Tom Hanks in “Cast Away”). Therefore, a lot of his performance is conveyed through his physicality and through facial expressions. DiCaprio earns his paycheck here. There’s no doubt about that.

With his volatile nature and abrasive “I’m going to do what I think needs to be done” attitude, Tom Hardy appears to be channeling Tom Berenger’s Sgt. Barnes from “Platoon.” He’s terrifying here, and once again, he proves to be quite the big screen presence. And Hardy clearly never backs down from a challenge. He appeared in both “The Revenant” and “Fury Road” in 2015, two of the most grueling film shoots in recent memory.

In addition to these excellent performances, as I stated at the beginning, “The Revenant” is simply stunning to look at. The masterful cinematography by Emmanuel Lubezki (“Gravity” and “Birdman”) is flashy to be sure, but there is no doubt that this man is an absolute genius of a DP. Be it his trademark single extended shots, the gorgeous wides of snow-filled frontier landscapes, the way his camera seamlessly follows Glass as he’s swept away by a river, or the terrifying intimacy of an all-too-up-close-and-personal glimpse into a bear mauling, Lubezki’s insanely intricate and seemingly magical camera positions force viewers to question how a lot of this stuff was pulled off. This is a fully immersive look into Glass’ brutal, epic, and meditative tale of survival, and the majority of the picture was shot using natural light, meaning that the cast and crew could only shoot at specific times. Talk about a complicated production.

Iñárritu has fashioned a movie that couldn’t be any more different from last year’s “Birdman.” “The Revenant” reaches for a dreamy, poetic Terrence Malick-like sense of symbolism and spirituality and mixes it with an experimental, wandering sensibility that might remind one of a Gus Van Sant movie. At it’s basic level, though, this is a long-winded, surprisingly simplistic (and somewhat hollow) tale of survival and revenge. I’m left wondering why it took over 2 1/2 hours to reach it’s cold, bloody, and emotionally disconnected finale, one that reminded me a bit of that childish fight between Will Patton and Kevin Costner at the end of “The Postman.” Fear not, “The Revenant” is far better as a whole than that much ridiculed Costner relic from 1997, but it leaves one with a similar kind of void. It could be argued that this is the whole point of “The Revenant.” Vengeance is cold, and obtaining it does nothing substantial for the soul. However, this point could have been made in under two hours.

A couple of years back, Alfonso Cuaron’s exhilarating “Gravity” was criticized in certain circles for being too simplistic in its tale of re-birth wrapped in a space-set survival story. But that film was much tighter in execution, and the simplicity at the heart of the film worked in perfect harmony with its “one-disaster-after-another” story structure.

By comparison, “The Revenant” is too long, and it lacks a solid emotional core. True, we want to see Glass make it out alive, but the film is so chilly and so utterly simple in terms of its main objective that I was left feeling a little unfulfilled by the time the movie finally came to a close.

Furthermore, there are too many moments in “The Revenant” when the struggle to get the movie made appears to be overshadowing the story itself. Is this film worth seeing in a theater? Most certainly. Having said that, at the end of the day, this tale of survival and revenge is more worth admiring for its sheer, undeniable craftsmanship than for telling a fully engaging, emotionally rich story of the human condition.