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Well, this movie has all the Oscar buzz and has been picking up some of the other awards hoping to be Best Picture. First, it ain’t like the book. They added the kid for more sympathy-revenge factor. For almost three hours I sat through a movie whose basic premise was about an American frontiersman on a fur trading expedition in the 1820s who fights for survival after being mauled by a bear and left for dead by members of his own hunting team. In the first place DiCaprio shouldn’t get an award except for anything except stupidity for putting himself to task in a harsh climate and doing what a stunt double would do. An actors penchant for suffering doesn’t count. That isn’t art, it is just plain dumb in this day of CGI. All for the sake of natural light and scenery that the director felt was necessary. I want entertainment at the theater, not photographic art. The cinematography was good, but you can get too much of a good thing. Inarritu does not deserve another Oscar for this loathsome movie. The only real acting was done by Tom Hardy, who normally plays the guy you are sympathetic too; however, in this movie he is the character you truly hate. Considering how bad Birdman sucked last year, I should have saved my matinee money on this crap. Forty three minutes into the movie, I looked at my watch thinking it should soon be over but to my chagrin there was another two hours left. And for those two hours there was little dialog only the congested gurgling and wheezing of DiCaprio. By the time the movie was over, you are wishing that the bear had killed him rather than mauling him. If the bear had killed him off and spared me from the remaining 2+ hours of this slog fest, I would say he deserves the Oscar. I will have to say, the bear mauling scene was quite realistic and gruesome, much like the flogging of Jesus in  Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. It was truly hard to take but you just couldn’t divert your eyes. This movie should be up there with the top worst ones in the world such as Orwell’s 1984 that was released in 1984, the Austin Powers movies, and Gravity. At least in Gravity, the incessant babbling of George Clooney ended when he floated out into space; however, you were left with the whining of Linda Bullock. She should have gone after him and then we could have left early again. I had rather be forced to watch a Dangerous Liaisons marathon that sit through the Revenant again.

Rating: -10 out of 5