Are you ready for a three-peat? The official teaser arrived today for Alejandro González Iñárritu's new highly anticipated epic “The Revenant” and while the mantra for Leonardo DiCaprio to finally win his first Oscar should begin at any moment the really story is about a guy nicknamed Chivo.
Emmanuel Lubezki has already pulled off a rare feat winning back-to-back Best Cinematography Oscars the past two years for “Gravity” and “Birdman.” Don't be surprised if he wins again. As the movie's first teaser so beautifully demonstrates, “The Revenant” was shot almost completely in natural light and features some incredible handheld camerawork that we're not sure even a GoPro could pull off. And, incredibly, 20th Century Fox and New Regency haven't given away all the money shots. At CinemaCon a different teaser screened that found the camera situated right above DiCaprio's left shoulder as he races into a gunfight on horseback. The power of the image hasn't faded after sitting through a deluge of Cannes and summer blockbusters since.
Of course, the bigger story here for most moviegoers revolves around DiCaprio. This is essentially his movie. As Hugh Glass he plays a frontiersman left for dead who goes on a mission to punish the men who heartlessly abandoned him. Those men are played by Tom Hardy (this is the picture that prevented him from doing “Suicide Squad”), Will Poulter, Domhnall Gleeson and Lukas Haas assuming you can make anyone but Hardy and DiCaprio out in the new preview. The whole scenario is Quentin Tarantino fare, but without that filmmaker's wicked sense of humor at play. This is much more serious stuff and Iñárritu wants the viewer as intimately part of the action as they were in his Oscar-winning “Birdman.” Oh, Oscar. We were talking about DiCaprio, weren't we? Even with five nominations his peers keep forgetting him when it comes around to handing out the awards (although the public's dismay keeps getting louder).
That unfortunate streak may finally end with the little movie you can check out in the teaser embedded here.
“The Revenant” opens in New York and Los Angeles on Christmas Day and nationwide in January.