You see I like slow burn westerns, long movie and revenge quests - but what I really dont like is 'survival' movies, one man against the wild kind of stuff (like cast away or rescue dawn or that one with robert redford on a boat), I get it that it requires a nuanced, dialogue free performance and technical accuracy to be believable, but I just don't enjoy or find it thrilling or entertaining. I didn't like DiCaprio's character, was too much of an 'all round good guy' for a modern western, too much of a 'modern sensitive man' for a classic western, not layered at all, didn't really empathise with him, didnt feel his anguish.
I enjoyed some scenes, both at the beginning and back in the fort, mostly the few scenes which were dominated by humans rather than nature, but even the presentation of the indians annoyed me - I get that it's wrong to just use them as a faceless savage enemy like in the john wayne days, but at the same time I found the huge over effort to bestow them with nobility and moral highground a bit smarmy and sickly. Even the very ending (not the final clash, which I thought was good, but the bit after) seemed cliched and unnecessary. In fact did the film really need that 'missing indian princess' sub plot at all?
I did enjoy that the french were portrayed as horrible, inhuman monsters - seems it not ok to do that to the indians any more but just fine to do it with the french.
EDIT: in a movie all about trying to be credible I also found it totally unbelievable that the commander would even think about letting Hardy's character stay back with the injured dicaprio, I mean what was gonna happen must have been even more obvious to the characters as it was to the audience