Dang, you guys are harsh. While movies like Amores Perros and Birdman do some really interesting things and hold you spellbound, I found it helpful to look at The Revenant as simply a movie about bears and Indians and horses dropping into trees and how Montana might have been harsh back then. (At least that's what the first incredible scene kind of hinted at.) It's no more serious than Last of the Mohicans, except you trade the love interest for Tom Hardy in what is really kind of a comic role.
Whether or not its "off the real story" doesn't really matter if you don't know what the "real story" is - advantage of not doing enough reading.
And if you resent it just because it won best picture, I don't have a problem with someone saying Spotlight, Big Short, or Fury Road should have won, but it wasn't shocking. (I thought Fury Road had a bigger wow factor but Revenant was damn beautiful and impressive and pretty easy to appreciate if you aren't resentful of where it ranks.)