A revenant is someone who returns, such as a ghost. The movie never explains that, so I just saved you the trouble of looking it up. You’re welcome.
If you saw The Revenant in the theater, sucks to be you. Choose better next time, maybe a movie not directed by the brilliant (sarcasm intended) Alejandro G. Iñárritu.
Iñárritu also helmed Birdman. In fact, Iñárritu directed The Revenant a couple years before Birdman but the movie sat in the can until Birdman inconceivably won Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Cinematography. The Revenant‘s producers woke up and said, “Hey, maybe we can actually release our crappy movie!” And Hollywood rewarded them by doling out nearly as many awards.
It’s a simple revenge flick. Leo DiCaprio plays Hugh Glass, a scout working for a fur trapping company somewhere in uncharted North America in 1823. (BTW, the movie never mentioned that it’s set in 1823; I found that factoid on IMDB; for all I knew the movie was set in present day North Dakota.) Leo survives a vicious bear attack that consumes about a third of the movie’s running time (it’s a two-and-a-half hour movie!). OK, maybe the bear attack wasn’t that long, but it sure felt that long. The fur trappers leave three men behind to tend to the badly wounded Leo while the rest of the party heads back to the company’s fort. Tom Hardy plays Tom Fitzgerald, one of the trappers tending to Leo. He’s tired of Leo, just wants to return to the fort and get paid. He’s the villain of the movie, the Trump supporter, if you will. Hardy kills Leo’s half-breed son, throws the dying Leo into an open grave, and leaves with another trapper. Leo rises from the grave, a revenant bent on revenge.
The rest of the movie is Leo’s long, arduous trek back to the fort in search of Hardy. Cue lots of stunning outdoor shots. This portion of the movie takes ten times longer than the extended bear attack. I know, my math is off, but it felt ten times longer.
Leo won an Oscar for looking believably uncomfortable throughout the movie. The brilliant (sarcasm intended again) Alejandro G. Iñárritu also won an Oscar, presumably for encouraging his talented cameraman Emmanuel Lubezki, who also won an Oscar (they handed them out like party favors), to find ever more innovative ways to film a simple action scene. I admit that the camera work is noticeable, but it’s not supposed to be. Lubezki is an annoying show-off.
If the only impressive thing about a movie is the camera work, you should have gone for a hike instead.
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