I'm not sure I ever saw the entire trailer when this first dropped, because if I did, I wouldn't have been surprised to discover that this was / is a Western. Sure, it doesn't have the traditional cowboys and whatnot, but a Western it is. The other thing I found interesting was that this would turn out to be a Thriller for all intents and purposes. Straight up, The Revenant is a Revenge flick and the movie excels in that trope in a way I don't think I've ever seen before. Talk about putting a character through so much sh*t (Bear attack, shot by an arrow, riding off a cliff and nearly freezing to death on multiple occasions), all in the effort to fulfill his mission to kill the man that killed his son. As a plot driven story, this is not. At it's core, I'd compare this flick to that of Gladiator. They even use the 'Visions' of  Hugh Glass to frame his arc. The performance by Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy and the exceptional direction by Alejandro G. Iñárritu make this a movie worth checking out. The cinematography is breathtaking. The inevitable confrontation that the entire movie is building toward was worth the wait for sure. I highly recommend this flick.