The Revenant

Will 2016 be the year that DiCaprio gets his Oscar? The Revenant is the latest film to see him nominated for Best Actor and it doesn't disappoint at all.

Alejandro Inarritu already blew the world away last year with his technically dazzling Birdman and goes all out here to top it with a film that took a grueling nine months to film in hostile conditions.

It's safe to say this isn't quite an 'enjoyable' watch in a traditional sense; it's long, challenging and hard hitting and more an artistic experience than anything else. Comparisons to The Hateful Eight are way off and only hold sway in terms of the snowy conditions and the time period the films are set but this is the polar opposite (no pun intended.)

This is a film for film fans and something to marvel at. The opening, one shot, battle sequence where Native Americans ambush Dicaprio's gang of hunters is mind-blowingly ambitious; the camera ducks, dives, joins a horse rider, follows arrows, moves in and out of close combat and even ducks underwater at one point. Quite simply, it's a piece of cinema unparalleled in its intricacy and Inarritu and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki are pushing boundaries here.

The long takes continue throughout the film but the camera work is involving and arty without being obtrusive and detracting. One scene involving Hugh Glass (DiCaprio's character) caught in some rapids places us with and alongside the character again ducking underwater in a scene which looks amazing on a big screen. Some of Lubezki's longer shots are picture-postcard-esque, especially impressive considering everything here was shot on location with only natural light.

THE scene everyone knows about and is expecting comes about half an hour in and is a piece of cinematic savagery experienced full on by the viewer. Inarritu is not one to shy away from violence and expect a few 'hide behind your hands' moments as you see wounds, deaths and, at one point akin to Empire Strikes Back's TaunTaun scene, Leo gut a horse so he can take refuge from a storm.

All the performances are on point; DiCaprio may well get his Oscar, Tom Hardy certainly should as villain of the piece Fitzgerald (despite some difficult-to-understand-bits) and Will Poulter pulls away from his 'newcomer' status with an assured performance deserving of higher-billing roles going forward.

Very much a cinematic experience this (two lovely scenes involve a character's breath actually fogging up the camera and a nod to Birdman with a randomly placed shooting star) and a film some may find difficult. Certainly not a 'date night' watch but a piece of cinematic art all too rare to find recently.

5 stars *****