“The Revenant” is finally here and opening at The Harbor Theatre Friday night at 7 p.m. And, if you've been waiting to see this movie, I can tell you: It was worth that wait.

This is an intense, in-your-face, beautifully filmed movie that will blow. You. Away.

There's a reason “The Revenant” has received 12 Academy Award nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, among them. Remember “Birdman?”

The 2015 Oscar-winning team (“Birdman”) of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (director) and Emmanuel Lubezki (cinematographer) are back with yet another masterpiece in “The Revenant.” Filmed entirely on location in the wilds of Canada, Argentina,  and the U.S., a story of survival, of Mother Nature and the natures of man and beast is played out.

The soundtrack, by Ryuichi Sakamoto, Alva Noto and Bryce Dessner, envelops and intrigues. A few of the percussion moments reminded me of “Birdman,” but those moments are few. The cello, an instrument that conveys emotion like no other, and the flute are haunting. Synthesized sound accompanies the rest and the result is well, hauntingly beautiful. “The soundtrack has also been nominated for an Oscar.

The acting ensemble is aces, with Leonardo DiCaprio delivering one hell of a performance.

The time frame is 1823 for a film based on the story of Hugh Glass, a real trapper-trader frontiersman who lived during that time. According to legend, Glass was attacked by a bear and eventually left behind by the hunting party he was with and buried alive in a shallow grave. Other similarities between the real Glass and cinematic Glass include the extreme actions he took to survive that winter as he struggled to catch up with those who had left him.

Such as …

Glass disemboweling his horse, killed in a frantic escape (be still my heart) from an unfriendly Native American search party looking for the chief's kidnapped daughter; sleeping inside your horse's carcass for protection from the elements; eating raw bison liver or some other grimace-and-gag-producing body part. ... The tight close up shots of the characters, that breathing, the incredibly credible performances of the actors, and the gorgeous, yet foreboding locations and, without a doubt, DiCaprio's exquisite performance that add up to a spellbinding theatrical experience that should not be missed.

The special effects used in the bear attack scene are unbelievable. You expect a grizzly attack will be brutal, but until one is happening right in your face, until you see a man's body being thrown like a sack of laundry, pounced on, bitten and clawed – twice … Holy Mother of God.

There are tender scenes too. Those in which Glass sees his dead wife – sometimes floating above him (like something out of a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel) or those in which he relives memories of her and of the two of them with their son, Hawk (Forrest Goodluck).

DiCaprio's performance in “The Revenant” is the “one.” I am quite certain he will finally win an Oscar – he's nominated every year - but this is the role. And, when his name is called, I predict that even his peers will be wildly and loudly cheering as he walks up to accept the highest honor a thespian can be given.

“The Revenant” plays Friday, Feb. 19, Saturday, Feb. 20, Wednesday, Feb. 24 and Thursday, Feb. 25 at 7 p.m., Sunday, Feb. 21 at 2 p.m. only.

The Harbor Theatre is located at 185 Townsend Avenue.

Get there.