In Alejandro González Iñárritu‘s The Revenant, Leonardo DiCaprio plays survivalist legend Hugh Glass, a frontiersman betrayed by both his land and fellow man, left ripped and ravaged without anything left to live for. Inch by inch we watch Glass crawl and tumble across miles and miles of picturesque Great Plains scenery, and little by little it becomes clear that, despite the film’s impossibly grandiose, elaborate, labored production, its story is relatively uncomplicated. Sitting firmly in the annals of American Myth, Glass’ journey is about little more than the unexpected fruits of grit and resilience, a classic survivalist tale through and through.

It’s an interesting thing marrying such a straightforward narrative (based loosely on Michael Punke‘s 2002 novel The Revenant: A Novel of Revenge) with Iñárritu’s overblown sense of spectacle and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki‘s floating, balletic long-takes. The combination works, but on a level that likely isn’t as high-minded or deeply spiritual as the filmmakers intended. The sights are soar, the sounds swirl, but what keeps things grounded and compelling are the hardworking actors and the simple satisfaction of watching a man on a mission, fighting tooth and nail to reach his target.

The target is a cantankerous, slippery brute called Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy) who earns Glass’ ire thoroughly. The rivals are a part of an expedition for the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, scouring the land for pelts to trade. While gathered on the Missouri river, the group is attacked by the Arikara tribe in a dizzying, dazzling bombardment of grotesque tomahawk and arrow kills punctuated by blood-curdling screams of agony all around. The men barely make it out alive, their numbers severed. When a grizzly bear mauling leaves Glass fatally wounded, the captain of the hunting party (Domhnall Gleeson) deems it too dicey to transport him via stretcher across the rocky terrain, leaving him under the care of Fitzgerald and a boy scout-ish tagalong (Will Poulter). They’re offered extra pay to stay behind and give their dying comrade a proper burial upon his all but inevitable death, and while Fitzgerald hasn’t got an ounce of compassion in him, he needs the cash considering they were forced to abandon their precious pelts in the escape from the Arikara. Once the rest of the party leaves, however, he plots a scheme more befitting of his nefarious attitude.

Glass was a real man, though what we see in The Revenant has gone through three filters of fictionalization—the history books, Punke and Iñárritu. After the Fitzgerald betrayal, the film follows Glass as he uses his frontier skills to nurse himself back to health while he tracks down the man who left him for dead. It’s a big, heaping plate of revenge and outdoors survival that’s meaty enough on its own, though Iñárritu and Lubezki add unneeded garnishes (shallow spirituality and white-guilt symbolism) that almost spoil the meal.

DiCaprio’s performance is tremendous in that he uses every inch of his body to tell Glass’ story. It’s a mostly non-verbal role that sees him expressing a wide range of emotion with his eyes (in the chunk of the story where Glass is incapacitated) and with his entire body as he slowly rehabilitates and traverses the unforgiving terrain. Overwhelmingly, this is a story of despair and tragedy, but we do get to see love in Glass’ eyes early on. In flashback, we see his Pawnee wife and their teenage son (Forrest Goodluck), who he raised to be a tracker like himself. Their fates, of course, aren’t sunny because…Iñárritu. DiCaprio. Tragedy is their jam, man.

Iñárritu and Lubezki teeter on the line between visual splendor and artistic arrogance so precariously that it adds to the excitement of their films in an almost meta way. Sometimes the imagery is ingenious; when Glass is all but crippled, Lubezki presents the surrounding landscape as not beautiful, but paralyzingly frightening in its endlessness. But then a bird flies out of a dying woman’s chest and you can’t help but laugh at how silly it looks. The ambition is bloated and these guys are totally caught up in their artsy maestro bullshit, but even the weakest shots in this movie (most of them involving iffy CG elements) have enough flair to them that you can hardly turn your attention from the screen.

Subtlety and thematic complexity aren’t Iñárritu’s strengths, so when The Revenant lets go of its “big ideas” and focuses on Glass’ manhunt, things get really good. Hardy plays a terrific scumbag, so when Glass finally get his hands on Fitzgerald, it’s both gratifying and insanely intense. Admittedly, the pleasures found in the excessively gory final showdown are decidedly testosterone-driven, but if you approach the movie as a primal tale of bloody revenge (á la Kill Bill and Mad Max: Fury Road, for example), there’s no reason to apologize for reveling in all the limb-hacking and eye-gouging.

If there’s one thing about The Revenant that irked me, it’s Iñárritu and co-writer Mark L. Smith‘s decision to push the story as a revisionist western in which the sins of the Native American genocide are examined through the eyes of a bunch of white guys. It’s an insult to both the Native American perspective, which is almost always grossly underrepresented in these kinds of stories, and to the real Glass, whose extraordinary ordeal is more than worthy enough of a movie on its own without faux-mystical themes muddying everything up.

As the Award Season is heating up, we’re beginning to see which films are clear favorites among critics and the industry. Certainly one of the frontrunners this year is Todd Haynes‘ Carol, which hauled in the most nominations this year for the Golden Globes, with a total of five. But Carol leading the noms isn’t exactly a surprise, the film has accumulated a ton of praise ever since its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. What is shocking is the four nominations for Alejandro González Iñárritu‘s The Revenant, which received underwhelming reactions from critics so far. Though Iñárritu is no stranger to the Golden Globes, last year he led the race with seven nominations for Birdman. Other strong contenders this year are Danny Boyle‘s biopic Steve Jobs and Tom McCarthy‘s newsroom drama Spotlight.

2016 Golden Globe Nominations

FILM

Best Motion Picture, Drama
Carol
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Revenant
Room
Spotlight

Best Motion Picture, Comedy
The Big Short
Joy
The Martian
Spy
Trainwreck

Best Director – Motion Picture
Todd Haynes, Carol
Alejandro González Iñárritu, The Revenant
Tom McCarthy, Spotlight
George Miller, Mad Max
Ridley Scott, The Martian

Best Actress in a Motion Picture, Drama
Cate Blanchett, Carol
Brie Larson, Room
Rooney Mara, Carol
Saoirse Ronan, Brooklyn
Alicia Vikander, The Danish Girl

Best Actress in a Motion Picture, Comedy
Jennifer Lawrence, Joy
Melissa McCarthy, Spy

Amy Schumer, Trainwreck


Maggie Smith, Lady in the Van

Lily Tomlin, Grandma

Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture
Jane Fonda, Youth
Jennifer Jason Leigh, The Hateful Eight
Helen Mirren, Trumbo
Alicia Vikander, Ex Machina
Kate Winslet, Steve Jobs

Best Actor in a Motion Picture, Drama
Bryan Cranston, Trumbo

Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant

Michael Fassbender, Steve Jobs
Eddie Redmayne, The Danish Girl
Will Smith, Concussion

Best Actor in a Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy
Christian Bale, The Big Short
Steve Carell, The Big Short
Matt Damon, The Martian
Al Pacino, Danny Collins
Mark Ruffalo, Infinitely Polar Bear

Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture
Paul Dano, Love & Mercy
Idris Elba, Beasts of No Nation
Mark Rylance, Bridge of Spies
Michael Shannon, 99 Homes
Sylvester Stallone, Creed

Best Screenplay – Motion Picture
Emma Donoghue, Room
Tom McCarthy, Josh Singer, Spotlight
Charles Randolph, Adam McKay, The Big Short
Aaron Sorkin, Steve Jobs
Quentin Tarantino, The Hateful Eight

Best Animated Feature Film
Anomalisa

The Good Dinosaur

Inside Out

The Peanuts Movie
Shaun the Sheep Movie

Best Original Song
"Love Me Like You Do" 50 Shades of Grey
"One Kind of Love" Love and Mercy
"See You Again" Furious 7
"Simple Song No. 3" Youth
"Writing's on the Wall" Spectre

Best Original Score
Carter Burwell, Carol
Alexandre Desplat, The Danish Girl
Ennio Morricone, The Hateful Eight
Daniel Pemberton, Steve Jobs
Ryuichi Sakamoto Alva Noto, The Revenant

Best Motion Picture, Foreign Language
The Brand New Testament
The Club
The Fencer
Mustang
Son of Saul

TELEVISION

Best TV Series, Drama

Empire
Game of Thrones
Mr. Robot
Narcos
Outlander

Best TV Series, Comedy
Casual
Mozart in the Jungle
Orange Is the New Black
Silicon Valley
Transparent
Veep

Best TV Movie or Limited-Series
American Crime
American Horror Story: Hotel
Fargo
Flesh and Bone
Wolf Hall

Best Actor in a TV Series, Drama
Jon Hamm, Mad Men
Rami Malek, Mr. Robot
Wagner Moura, Narcos
Bob Odenkirk, Better Call Saul
Liev Schreiber, Ray Donovan

Best Actress in a TV Series, Drama
Caitriona Balfe, Outlander
Viola Davis, How to Get Away With Murder
Eva Green, Penny Dreadful
Taraji P. Henson, Empire
Robin Wright, House of Cards

Best Actor in a TV Series, Comedy
Aziz Ansari, Master of None
Gael Garcia Bernal, Mozart in the Jungle
Rob Lowe, The Grinder
Patrick Stewart, Blunt Talk
Jeffrey Tambor, Transparent

Best Actress in a TV Series, Comedy
Rachel Bloom, Crazy Ex Girlfriend
Jamie Lee Curtis, Scream Queens
Julia Louis Dreyfus, Veep
Gina Rodriguez, Jane the Virgin
Lilly Tomlin, Grace & Frankie

Best Supporting Actress in a Series, Limited-Series, or TV Movie
Uzo Aduba, Orange is the New Black
Joanne Froggatt, Downton Abbey
Regina King, American Crime
Judith Light, Transparent
Maura Tierney, The Affair

Best Supporting Actor in a Series, Limited-Series or TV Movie
Alan Cumming, The Good Wife
Damian Lewis, Wolf Hall
Ben Mendelsohn, Bloodline
Tobias Menzies, Outlander
Christian Slater, Mr. Robot

Best Actor in a Limited-Series or TV Movie
Idris Elba, Luther
Oscar Isaac, Show Me a Hero
David Oyelowo, Nightingale
Mark Rylance, Wolf Hall
Patrick Wilson, Fargo

Best Actress in a Limited-Series or TV Movie
Kirsten Dunst, Fargo
Lady Gaga, American Horror Story: Hotel
Sarah Hay, Flesh & Bone
Felicity Huffman, American Crime
Queen Latifah, Bessie

Ominous, awash in blue, and unexpectedly epic-looking, Alejandro González Iñárritu‘s upcoming Birdman has an heir of something special from the looks of its first trailer. With a star-studded cast lead by Michael Keaton, Birdman follows a washed-up actor (Keaton), known for playing the titular superhero, who launches an attempted career comeback with a Broadway play. From the looks of this trailer Keaton butts heads with his Broadway co-star (played by Edward Norton) and causes a very concerned-looking Zach Galifianakis stress. Emma Stone, Naomi Watts, Andrea Riseborough, and Amy Ryan also star in the film shot by recent Oscar-winner Emmanuel Lubezki, who is responsible for the beautifully orchestrated long-takes on display in the trailer. Lubezki fans will remember his gripping long-take cinematography from 2006’s Children of Men.

Birdman is set for its domestic release on October 17th of this year, watch Michael Keaton walk through Times Square in his tightey whiteys set to a remix of Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy” in the trailer below:

Watch trailer for Birdman