The Revenant Review

Grade: B+
One-Liner: The role Leo's been trying his whole life for.

Watching The Revenant is like watching two and a half hours of Leonardo DiCaprio scratching, clawing, crawling, limping, groaning, and brutally murdering his way to an Oscar. Seriously, watching this made me say a silent prayer for Eddie Redmayne if he manages to win again this year, because he's not making it out of that theater alive.

Though the film lacked much character development and wasn't that impressive in the dialogue department, it made up for it in the brutal, raw physical performances from leads DiCaprio and Tom Hardy.

Not only did director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu manage to make these two very attractive men look gruesome and horribly mangled, but he also contrasted their grotesque nature with stunning backdrops and beautiful countryside. The cinematography and impressive CGI rival that of films set in space as Inarritu deftly navigated his rustic setting.

Many will be turned off by the gory nature of the film — it makes the scene with the dog in Django Unchained seem normal — but all of it fit and seemed necessary in the scope of the movie.

But really The Revenant was just a masterclass in DiCaprio's range as an actor. To go from The Wolf of Wall Street to this is about as drastic as a man can go. If the Academy doesn't award him with an Oscar this year, the man really has as much luck as Jack Dawson.