[Closed] The Revenant (may contain spoilers, but not from me!)

Slow West is pretty good too.

I absolutely loved this film, it's visually beautiful and a great story.

It's visually beautiful for sure. And I'd like to read the book now. Still think it was a bit of a triumph of style over content. The horse ride chase was the most obvious guy-riding-a-mechanical-horse moment ever. 😆 But I did do a WTF 😯 at what happened then. I like LDC but I don't think he was Oscar-winning in this one. Hardy was good though.

Going to see it tomorrow - not my choice so I'm determined I'm not going to like it.

The opening camp attack shot, all in one edit, is incredible imo.

Liked it, bear scene was interesting. Rest of family were not as impressed.

It was "OK". Nowt special.

Didn't finish it over Xmas when the daughters boyfriend arranged an 'Indian' style live screening presumably pirated, tbh hadn't realise it was on the movies at present, other than the opening attack and the bear scene it became too slow for my limited attention span.

I thought it was great, Hardy and Gleeson were very good and I thought Leo nailed it.

I am going to watch it on telly when it's free ... 😆

Thought it was good but need subtitles for half of Tom Hardie's mumblings.

unovolo - Member
Thought it was good but need subtitles for half of Tom Hardie's mumblings.

The opening camp attack shot, all in one edit, is incredible imo.

Also, I found the film a bit flat. Disjointed story,too much breaking of the 4th wall (breath fogging up the camera lens, fight scene bumping into camera FFS) and whilst it did look good there was nothing in there that hasn't been done a hundred times before.

All in all, 6.5/10 - a decent period revenge flick but not worth going to iMax for.

A no from me ,couldn't understand what one of them was saying , the finish was predictable and his recovery from the bear attack was miraculous to say the least . Watched The Crying Game on telly the other night and found it far better and that must be years old but it actually had a few twists and turns that were , for me anyway , quite unexpected .

Long dragged out film that you just want to end because you can only put up with "OMG! He survived, again" so many times. Beautifully filmed though.

I wonder how many who didn't like this film enjoyed that Star Wars garbage..?
(Just out of interest, like)

Me why? Do you think it's too sophisticated for my taste?

Probably 😆 Nah, not at all, just wonder how tastes differ.

The photography was amazing. Apparently the cinematographer insisted on all natural light, they had to wait until it was good enough, must have taken a lot of patience (and budget!!)

Loved it, but did find it odd that they chose to eat raw fish and meat when sat next to or close to a fire!

Technically brilliant but not as entertaining as Star Wars, however I'm a simpleton who doesn't appreciate 'art'.

[i]Loved it, but did find it odd that they chose to eat raw fish...[/i]

Not heard of sushi? 😉

I struggled with the mumbling of the main characters, my Russian friend found it even more difficult even though her English is excellent. We both enjoyed it though.

Absolutely fantastic. Loved it from start to finish. Visually stunning and great acting. Had to suspend disbelief a few times, but in saying that it is based on a true story and the wounds inflicted were real and he did survive.

his recovery from the bear attack was miraculous to say the least

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Glass

Despite his injuries, Glass regained consciousness, but found himself abandoned, without weapons or equipment. He had festering wounds, a broken leg, and cuts on his back that exposed bare ribs. Glass lay mutilated and alone, more than 200 miles from the nearest American settlement at Fort Kiowa on the Missouri River. Glass set his own leg, wrapped himself in the bear hide his companions had placed over him as a shroud, and began crawling. To prevent gangrene, Glass laid his wounded back on a rotting log and let maggots eat the dead flesh.

Glass crawled overland south toward the Cheyenne River using Thunder Butte as a navigational tool, where he fashioned a crude raft and floated downstream to Fort Kiowa. The journey took him six weeks. He survived mostly on wild berries and roots; on one occasion he was able to drive two wolves from a downed bison calf, and feast on the meat. Glass was aided by friendly Native Americans who sewed a bear hide to his back to cover the exposed wounds and provided him with food and weapons.

Look it's on Wiki it must be true even the bit about maggots living in logs.

Look it's on Wiki it must be true even the bit about maggots living in logs.

Micro details aside, I don't believe there's any dispute that he was mauled by a bear, left for dead then made his way 200 miles by crawling etc, ergo he recovered from the bear attack

Saw it last night.
Stunning film and gave a real sense of how it may have been in those times.
The opening scene gave Saving Private Ryan a good run for it's money.

Yup,Tom Hardy needed subtitles ,but he did always seeem to be trying to talk over a rushing river ,or some other background noise.

It did drag a wee bit and sometimes went a bit 'Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon', but all in all ,excellent. 8/10

I had almost forgotten to go, but was inspired to do so by this incredibly insane review/opinion piece in the Grauniad, and have now booked tickets:

[url= http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/17/revenant-leonardo-dicaprio-violent-meaningless-glorification-pain ]The Revenant isn’t responsible for [Islamic State's horrifying execution videos]. It’s simply the kind of tedious, emotionally vacant film that has certain critics and Academy Award judges wetting their pants. Don’t pay £10-£15. You might as well wait for it to come out on Netflix and fall asleep on your own sofa. Or stay awake and enjoy the raping and somebody or other getting a machete in the head just for the hell of it. Or just wait for the next Isis offering.[/url]

Blimey a film reviewer who isn't sucked in by Oscar nominations that makes a refreshing change.

Isn't the 'real' story sketchy at best? Whatever it is the film just goes on and on full of bits where you think, really?

Wasn't great at all.

...a bunch of guys scrabbling about in a flooded woods and an endless slog across frozen bleak wilderness.

Anyway, after my bike ride I went to see this film. I may still be watching it in fact, as it did go portentiously on ("ils sont tous les sauvages" ah right, now I get it.) Why do films have to last so long these days?

Some great shots for sure, but the plot is mainly LDC getting smacked about. He'd look accident prone next to wiley coyote. Give us pain leonardo... (spitting image roger moore ref anyone?)

Anyway, don't listen to me as my favourite films either involve subtitles, a plot which is basically people in rooms in new york talk to each other (Alejandro González Iñárritu's last film, birdman), or both (Eden.)

too much breaking of the 4th wall

Agree. Especially the final frame. Argh.

Otherwise it was awesome and epic.

Blimey a film reviewer who isn't sucked in by Oscar nominations that makes a refreshing change.

That article is laughably bad. Clearly the writer has a bee in her bonnet

that’s a fate reserved for one of the two women who appear fleetingly on screen. (The other one is slaughtered. But don’t worry, you have no idea who she is so you won’t actually care.)

The "other one" was DiCaprio's character's wife. If she failed to understand that then she should resort to reviewing Adam Sandler films

The woman is not actually raped, of course. She’s faux raped. Because this is what we call acting. And because The Revenant is what we call entertainment. There’s a crucial difference between us and the people we are currently trying to blow to smithereens with million-pound missiles: we choose to pay to watch women being pretend raped rather than watching women being actually raped for free.

Is she somehow trying to suggest "people" (let's face it, she's having a dig a men here) will enjoy the seconds long rape scene? Or it will not even register with them? She fails to mention the rape victim cuts the rapists balls off with a knife just a few seconds later.

I wasn’t entertained. Can you tell? I saw it at a press screening two weeks before Christmas when the streets were filled with twinkly fairy lights and I tripped past a Salvation Army band playing Silent Night to spend what felt like several weeks in a dark room waiting – oh dear God, do you wait – for Leo to just get on and hack the other man to death so I could finally go home.

Perhaps a never ending loop of Love Actually would be more up her street with it's faux depiction of London at Xmas.

Director Alejandro González Iñárritu’s idea was for it to look as real as possible. Which would have been magnificent if there was something in the way of a story or any meditation on the nature of retribution or anyone – anyone – that you could give one toss about, but there’s not

I honestly think she must have fallen asleep or hasn't seen at all. The entire revenge was driven by the murder of DiCaprio's son. Apparently infanticide is something "you could give one toss about"

And in all probability, it will win every Oscar going. Critics have lavishly praised its “visceral” imagery, its “authentic” feel; it is, they say, “immersive” film-making at its finest. Though, arguably, not as immersive as putting a camera in a cage and then setting a man on fire. Have you seen that one? Where the man is burned alive? It’s not by González Iñárritu, but Isis. It wasn’t nominated for anything but the pain is even more real, more visceral, more – what was the word, thrilling? – than DiCaprio’s.

So we should ban films altogether because bad stuff happens, or maybe just make nice silly rom-coms. One of the key attractions of cinema is escapism.

But then, all of Isis’s video output is inspired by our own entertainments – in its subject matter, its soundtrack, its editing. Islamic State hasn’t invented new narrative tropes, it’s simply lifted them straight from Hollywood. All it’s done is to go one step further, trumped Hollywood at its own game. It has seen what we want, what we thrill to, and given it to us. If there were grizzly bears in the Syrian desert, there’s no doubt that they’d put one in a cage and let us see what it really looks like when one rips a man apart.

ISIS, ISIS, ISIS. I fail to see the connection here other than poor clickbait

You might as well wait for it to come out on Netflix and fall asleep on your own sofa

Wrong. The visual nature of it means it needs to be seen on the big screen

our choice, though perhaps we could all try and act a little less surprised by the Islamic State’s next video spectacular. Or ask ourselves why pain and suffering and brutalising women and pointless, fetishistic violence – when it’s done by Hollywood – wins awards.

Maybe some of us can differentiate between fantasy and reality. I'm assuming she would have written a similar article if, for example, Saving Private Ryan had just came out with that opening battle scene?

She just sounds like someone deliberately going against popular opinion and dropping in the current zeitgeist buzzwords in a tawdry clickbait attempt

Blimey a film reviewer who isn't sucked in by Oscar nominations that makes a refreshing change.

To be fair, the film had been well reviewed by anyone worth listening to/reading before ever the nominations were announced.

Oh it's the article of a mad woman but she got the Oscar bit right.

I've no idea whether she's mad or not, but the article is a bit of a rant (with some valid points in there).

It's a very odd way to write a film review.

The Oscars are guff anyway

Yay, I missed all this, but that BoardingBob knows what he's talking about from what I can figure 🙂

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Went on too long, predictable, caught myself falling asleep a few times, breathing on the camera....

And if he does get the Oscar, well I can wheeze just as good as he does?

Annoying, as I like Leo in most of his other things.

This film is the absolute expression of a cinematic experience. The actual story is secondary to the tone and texture of the film.

Everything is elevated by extraordinarily complex composition and staging. I really do not know how they achieved such staggering camera work - especially given the conditions.

This will be a classic in time to come. I feel cinematic boundaries have been pushed here for all the right reasons.

Hardy was the weakest element for me. He didn't carry off the necessary menace for an antagonist to be worth the pursuit.

extraordinarily complex composition and staging

I wish I understood how to make films better. I honestly think it would really make me enjoy them more. I sort-of understand how to take still photos (not well enough to do it), but I'm very clueless about film.

🙂

Big Dummy - think about this - you can hide so much with editing, it's a films' get out clause. A scene of someone shooting an arrow is one shot then reset and for a follow up shot of someone taking the arrow. Two individual shots then timed up and CUT to make a sequence.

Where the Revenant scores is the amount of action it puts into one 'take' or scene whilst the camera is rolling. So co-oridinating all the movements of the cast and camera become theatrical and precise. People falling out of trees in the same take as horses trotting past - all whilst the camera is moving and being focussed - in the muddy snow hell!

I run a production company, and know how tricky it is sometimes to shoot one interview in one warm room... What they've done here is off the scale. I guess it's why the budget doubled.

Of course it makes for a more believable and gripping film. That's not to say it means the film will be good that's down to the individual but it's part of the conviction of the material - do you believe Dicaprio went through this ? The artistry in this for me was so convincing as to draw me in more so than a regular film experience.

Thinking about it, there was a lot of that sort of thing. That's interesting, I shall keep in mind.

Where the Revenant scores is the amount of action it puts into one 'take' or scene whilst the camera is rolling. So co-oridinating all the movements of the cast and camera become theatrical and precise. People falling out of trees in the same take as horses trotting past - all whilst the camera is moving and being focussed - in the muddy snow hell!

Given he has previous it's not a great leap of faith to believe that he used the same techniques in The Revenant.

Ox - bit of confusion here: Birdman is shot to make it look like it's one take. Invisible edits make it appear to be one take. However the individual takes are still long and complex.

As for Revenant - the intention is not one long take like Birdman - just long complex scenes/set-ups per take.

There was the odd invisible edit but still incredible film making.

Saw it last night. Very impressive in many ways but the second half needed more story/plot and less almost-death.

+1 Some scenes didn't quite work - eg. camera work on the final fight was annoying.

First 10 mins, the bear scene, and the horse sleeping bag were absolutely brilliant though.

Opening scene in Heat is a continuous take, havent seen this film but the trailer makes it look like a snowy bog so to do long takes with lots of action would be very difficult.

I liked it
I couldn't help but think Cormac McCarthy whilst I was watching it, was like a cinematic version of one of his books (not a lot happens at times but the scene setting keeps you engaged)

Saw this last night I enjoyed it. But can anyone help me the bit at the end with the stick and the dead body? What western was this copied from? Oh and "i thought they smelled bad on the outside".

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, is all I can say. Loved the landscapes etc, but thought it dragged on and on.

Nice Oscar tribute - needs sound...

😀 that's ACE!

Better than the film itself.

was boringly crap

.

I enjoyed it very much but I like westerns and I like epics so it was always going to my thing.

Bit late to the party ..

Long dragged out film that you just want to end because you can only put up with "OMG! He survived, again" so many times. Beautifully filmed though.

+1

Very late! (Wondered why this appeared back at the top of my threads started list).
Guess you can't've seen it at the cinema - watched on TV with my son recently and it's not the same film, much less involving. Especially the "one take" battle scene - however the bear looked less CGI on the small screen.
Still brilliant though.

ps. 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' is getting a new cinema release. I'd love to see that on the big screen, so hoping it gets shown down here.

ps. 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' is getting a new cinema release. I'd love to see that on the big screen, so hoping it gets shown down here.

Good shout! Will look out for this 🙂