The Revenant on Mars

About the Revenant …

The movie is too long, too repetitious, too esoteric in creating mood, rather than action. Yep, Leo does a good job of being injured and battling against the forces of nature and savage hostiles, both French and Native American, but a little bit of that goes a long way. Especially when the setting is big mountains and deep snow.

I feel the same way about The Revenant as I did watching Martian: we must be running out of good ideas for good movies, so we stretch the story by including long shots of the environment. In
Martian, Matt Damon is stranded on Mars and has to figure out how to survive: cue the long shots of the desolate environment. In Revenant, Leo Di Caprio is stranded in the snowy mountains and has to figure out how to survive: cue the long shots of the desolate environment. Leo is mauled by a bear, so has life-threatening physical injuries, while Matt has to overcome isolation and the threat of dying before help can be sent. Both of them have issues to overcome in their “man v. nature” battles, but both of the movies easily could have cut ½ hour and it would not be missed.

A long movie sometimes is just that: long. Once the viewer has the basic concept presented a time or two or three, it's time to move the story along.