This movie was cold.

I could summarize The Revenant as a movie about fur traders in the early 19th century, where Glass(Dicaprio) is hunting down Fitzgerald(Hardy) because he killed his son. But this doesn't do the movie justice.

Now, that summary is not wrong; it is a very simply revenge plot. But this summary misses the beauty of how this revenge plot is told. The Revenant is a revenge story, taking place in a man vs. nature movie. Glass has to literally fight off nature in order to achieve his revenge.

This movie is a slow burn (2.5 hours run-time), but I didn't necessarily think that was a bad thing. It further emphasized the fight through nature by dragging the audience through the wilderness alongside Glass. And that was the best part of this movie; you see Glass' drive to fight through nature to avenge his son. By the end, you feel how grueling that trek was.

What makes this work is how real the movie looks. This movie is shot with natural light and it makes the wilderness seem like an arms reach away. At times you can feel how cold the movie is.

The acting was on point as well. Dicaprio and Hardy's performance was expected, but Domhnall Gleeson came out of nowhere; his performance was the icing on the cake for me. I honestly didn't know he was in this movie.

This is all without mentioning the most gruesomely-real looking scene I have ever seen in a movie: the bear mauling scene.

Man, was that scene not for the faint of heart.

But all of this is where the film starts to fall short of being a great film in my opinion. I know it is based off a real story, but the plot is simple and isn't particularly interesting in my opinion. It is a revenge plot, without any thematic or philosophical twist (unless you count the Native American revenge sub-plot, but c'mon man that sub-plot is almost overdone in westerns). You have seen this story before. This movie makes up for it's simplicity in its cinematography. It is shot well; you feel as if you are there. The revenge/man vs. nature plot was visually executed near perfection. But unless you are a fan of cinematography, this doesn't quite make up for the uninteresting plot.

I recommend this movie, but I don't know if I will watch it again.

8.0/10