2016 was Leonardo DiCaprio's year, as he finally won the Academy Award he'd been working towards his whole career. It was The Revenant that afforded him that chance, and as Screen Junkies promised with their previous Oscar round-up, a full riffing of the Academy Award nominated film has come. You can watch the madness for yourself below.
Leave it to the guys at Screen Junkies to totally roast Leonardo DiCaprio's Oscar winning performance, as a huge sticking point of their rundown of The Revenant seems to chalk the film up to a lot of sky shots, confusing accents, and the most soulful, award winning grunting a man could ever muster. After six nominations, this is the role that DiCaprio won his golden glory for, and this seems like a mixed bag judging by the reaction of the guys at Honest Trailers.
Though as good as Leonardo DiCaprio was in The Revenant, the video doesn't hesitate to point out that there were a lot of factors that helped DiCaprio's performance run as naturally as he would wish. Keep in mind, Alejandro Gonzalez-Inarritu did film his epic of fur trapping and revenge over the course of an extended, naturally lit shooting schedule. Not to mention, LeonardoDiCaprio himself actually went uber-method while shooting the film, which could only help clinch his nomination, and eventual win. All of that said, it still doesn't wipe away the fact that this film featured more grunting than any of the drug trips DiCaprio endured during his last award-nominated performance in The Wolf of Wall Street.
Strangely enough, The Revenant is criticized by this Honest Trailer for one, key factor. Despite the fact that the film has been heralded as a brutal, unflinching work of cinema, there are some who may find the pacing and artistry of the film a bit dull. Considering how the film was marketed as an intense exercise in vengeance and survival, it's fair to say that the finished product is a much slower burn than most would have expected. Whether or not this is a good thing depends on what type of moviegoer you are, as The Revenant is just as divisive as Alejandro Gonzalez-Inarritu's last film, Birdman, or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance. So if really artfully done, slow moving narratives still aren't your thing, you're obviously not going to enjoy this film.
No matter how you look at it, Leonardo DiCaprio was overdue for an Academy Award for Best Actor, and as far as award winning performances go, you could do a lot worse than his efforts on display in The Revenant. Should you need any convincing, you can purchase The Revenant on Digital HD now, with the Blu-ray and DVD releases scheduled for April 19th.
