Another survivor movie, and the opposite of Birdman: The Revenant

Some really great things and some not so great as well in Alejandro Inarritu's The Revenant: So, yes, it's a story of great suffering and endurance as a man - unnamed? - played by Leonardo DiCaprio - struggles to make his way across a frozen wilderness (the Wyoming territory, it seems, in the mid-19th century) and to get revenge on the heavy (Tom Hardy) who killed his son. As a trek-adventure-survival story, it's very good with some powerful scenes - including the already famous attack of the grizzly bear, as well as numerous fights, attacks, treks across ice and rapid water, great heights, and so on. The photography is open, beautiful, expansive, and the score - unusual for a movie these days - actually enhances the action with its mysterious tones and timbres. So it's great to watch and, if you can endure the suffering and cold, will hold you rapt, even though it did not have to be another goddamn 2 1/2 hour movie, sorry, It feels as if Inarritu was trying to expand his range after the terrific Birdman - which was the polar opposite, in a way: mostly interiors, tracking shots, urban, contemporary, and highly literary (excellent screenplay). He succeeded, but lost in the process was writing and narraative development: it's almost impossible to figure out early on who the characters are, what they're doing, whom they are opposing, all the basics of narrative art (ultimately we realize that we are following a bunch of fur trappers who are trying to avoid both the brutal French army troops and the Pawnee Indians, particular one group looking for a kidnapped daughter; LdC seems to have been raised by Indians himself, though that's never made terribly clear). CiCaprio has almost no significant dialogue but his antagonist, Fitzgerald (Hardy, the go-to tough guy all of a sudden) has a lot of dialogue, most of it incomprehensible. As a survival movie, the Rev (a spirit come back from the dead, btw) makes a good contrast w/ The Martian, and though both have their strengths The Martian edges out Rev in my view, largely because of more clear development of a narrative arc and a central character (Damon) whom we come to root for and like.