Director Alejandro G. Innarritu is back again after his Best Director - and Best Picture - winning "Birdman" wowed critics in 2014. Now he has "The Revenant," an even more daring film, shot on location. Which location is it? I’m not sure, but it looked pretty grueling.

Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) is an American soldier in the French and Indian war with a Native American son, Hawk (Forrest Goodluck). After being mauled by a bear, he is essentially immobile, only being supported by Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy) and Bridger (Will Poulter). Fitzgerald, being the the rebel he is, tricks Bridger to abandon Hugh for dead and, in the act, also has to kill Hugh’s son. Hugh, with just the skin of the bear that almost killed him and a will for vengeance, has no choice but to find and kill Fitzgerald.

The most obvious aspect of this film is the cinematography. Emmanuel Lubezki astonished us with his unique cubism-oriented, in-your-face cinematic style in 2011 with "The Tree of Life" and has won the past two Academy Awards in Cinematography for 2013’s "Gravity" and 2014’s "Birdman." Similar to "Birdman," I believe the style works best when it’s "showtime." The action sequences seem very real and it’s like you’re actually there, similar to the play in "Birdman." However, there is a good amount of downtime in "The Revenant," along with in "Birdman," and I was just neutral on Lubezki performance, regarding said downtime.

The continuity was jarring, as well. After "Birdman"’s “one shot” gimmick. which matched Lubezki’s smooth cinematography with smooth transitions between scenes, this action film, which does have a decent amount of takes, sometimes will make, well, mistakes. In the first sequence, Hugh Glass walks up to Captain Andrew Henry (Domnhall Gleeson). The shot has Glass walking up to Henry. Then there’s a cut that leads to another shot where we still see Henry. It feels like a jump cut. I didn’t see many other glaring errors, but with a film like this, it’s very difficult to find seamless cinematography, and it shows here.

The actual story is simple, something I enjoyed, giving the denseness of Birdman. Though it’s slightly predictable, I found most of it compelling. This film wasn’t a grueling wait like "127 Hours," and I found it really made the most of its concept. There’s always something going on, even if it’s just trying to find water.

I found the dynamic between Fitzgerald and Bridger interesting. It could have easily been a dominance of character by Fitzgerald, which it was at first, but the screenplay lets Bridger become more than just a scared young soldier. Their relationship evolves, and they have this weird sort of pact friendship, something that gave a complexity to this simple story.

Twenty years from now, though, "The Revenant" might just be known as the movie that got Leonardo DiCaprio’s first Oscar win. I was a little surprised as to just how little dialogue there is; his throat actually gets slashed by the bear in the the mauling, though he was able to speak later. Similar to Eddie Redmayne performance in "The Theory of Everything," this looks like mostly a physical performance by DiCaprio. It’s mostly nuanced, like most of his work, and though this performance doesn’t supersede most of his work, it supersedes the weak acting category seen this year.

Though I originally loved "Birdman" last year, upon a second viewing, I could see it as indulgent. It seemed like a film that a liberal arts student would make after seeing a series of independent films for the first time in his life. It was an overstated film about understatedness. With "The Revenant," it seemed like Iniarritu wanted to prove anyone like that wrong, and to leave show business and go toward nature. "The Revenant" itself is indulgent and, like the environment of the New York City snobbery in "Birdman," "The Revenant" is indulgent in its grueling, tough-guy conditions. It’s almost gimmicky: a movie about grueling hardship. The movie doesn’t take that grueling hardship and make much of it, like "Platoon" or "City of God" did. Instead, a good amount of it is just showing how gross things can get.

Despite that, I feel like this film is very well-rounded. I did enjoy most facets of the film. While "The Revenant" shot for the moon and missed, at least it’s among the stars.

7/10