Is Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s The Revenant a joyless, two-and-a-half hour slog, consisting of revenge, death, wilderness survival, and bear attacks? Not when you add some classic graphics and sound effects and turn it into a video game in the great tradition of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. That is exactly the premise behind “Leo DiCaprio’s Pro Revenant,” a high-concept new short film from video madman Dominick Nero. What Nero has done with this two-minute video is to transform Iñárritu’s epic from a grim, Oscar-nominated drama into “a fun extreme sports game that award[s] players for completing cool tricks and doing generally destructive things,” just like the beloved skateboarding simulator of yore. Here, Leonardo DiCaprio’s Hugh Glass is a playable character with a simple mission: avenge his dead son. The player has all sorts of options, especially as far as locations go. Leo can seek vengeance in a cold river, a cold tundra, some cold woods, a cold mountain, or a warehouse. Fun, right?
If this seems like a far-fetched mashup, the video’s creator describes the numerous parallels between the classic video game and the current movie: