Directed by:
Rian JohnsonScreenplay:
Rian JohnsonCinematography:
Steve YedlinComposer:
Nathan JohnsonCast:
Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt, Paul Dano, Jeff Daniels, Piper Perabo, Noah Segan, David Jensen, Jeff Chase, Garret Dillahunt, Marcus Hester (more)VOD (3)
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In the futuristic action thriller Looper, time travel will be invented – but it will be illegal and only available on the black market. When the mob wants to get rid of someone, they will send their target 30 years into the past, where a "looper" – a hired gun, like Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) – is waiting to mop up. Joe is getting rich and life is good... until the day the mob decides to “close the loop", sending back Joe’s future self (Bruce Willis) for assassination. (official distributor synopsis)
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Reviews (12)
At last a proper sci-fi. The nutritious story wrings everything it can from the topic of time travel. Rian Johnson first sketches the basic premise, then later enriching it with other added value and manages not to lose his way. Bruce is on best form (in terms of action and acting) and Joe just confirms his place as one of today’s best young actors, even under a thick layer of makeup. And moreover we have the incredibly well-cast kid who is a pest, a bit of a psycho, but still you find yourself rooting for him at least a little. The low budget turned the year 2044 into a horrible urban cesspit or an empty field in Kansas. This gives the picture the proper atmosphere where everything is more or less... gray. Anyone who compares this with Terminator was just stupidly concentrating on Willis’s storyline, while this movie isn’t really about him and don’t think you’ll get 12 Monkeys here, Looper has a long way to go to get to that. In any case, I want to watch this again soon.
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Bruce Willis is able to time travel much better that this (hello 12 Monkeys). Looper is another one of those new sci-fi films (Moon, Source Code, In Time...) where it's nice to see that they can get by without a huge budget and that they can raise the hopes of genre lovers that they'll be original and fresh... But that's the end of it. In this case I liked the initial idea, the technical execution and both actors (Joseph Gordon-Levitt handled the role of Bruce Willis quite well, he wasn't even very ridiculous), but the rest wasn't worth much. Continually stupid and illogical, the clichéd passage on the farm makes me want to kill someone, and worst of all was the ending, in which - SPOILER - the hero died, but his inner voice kept on talking.
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Looper is a solidly thought out and well-shot and narrated "semi-indie" sci-fi film, which actually only takes a proven foundation and adds nothing new to it. So if you've seen "time travel" classics like Donnie Darko or 12 Monkeys (or The Butterfly Effect and others), it will become clear to you in the middle of the film that someone who returns from the future to fix the past tends to find out that his actions are part of the events he seeks to prevent. And unfortunately, the film goes along these tracks without any surprises and any significant excitement. After a fairly fresh introduction, an overly sleepy passage comes in the second half, which tries to motivate the rebirth of the hero's younger self. It makes sense, it doesn't offend, but at the same time it's not a big deal - rather a solidly written conversation film. Johnson works a lot with the characters, less with the world, which is more so sketched out (one must wonder why it's full of trailer trash, why people are so disgusting to each other and why there is a Zen oasis on the other half of the globe). Willis' storyline brings more adrenaline, but also shallow poses, awkward action and love clichés. The two selves meet in an excellent scene in a bistro, but then they each go their down their own storylines until the loop closes. Looper confirms the trend of "intelligent genre films with a lower budget" (Source Code, The Adjustment Bureau, Moon, In Time), which surpass the mainstream with their ambition and authorial vision. But they almost always lack an essential piece in order to achieve perfection. Most likely the piece that would significantly disrupt the well-known genre rules - it is best described by Willis, who, when mentioning a complex time paradox, says something to his younger self in the sense of: "We would have to sit here overnight and draw on piles of napkins. Just believe that things are this way." In the end, the trap is not unlike the one in which their more expensive friends hang. [75%]
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A great premise, an interesting execution. Looper might not be perfect and it has a whole lot of holes, but on the other hand, it tries to be unconventional, original and quite unusual – successfully so. After all, it can’t be easy to come up with a time travel story, so stasis will probably always have one or twoholes in it. On the other hand, Gordon-Levitt, Willis, Blunt and Daniels are making up for it perfectly. The rather slow and difficult start is then saved by the story, which is unpredictable in each passing minute, even though it makes you think that it isn’t. And that’s basically the nitty-gritty. Looper is an excellent idea and I must tip my hat off to anyone who decides to pursue these kinds of ideas. It’s actually a suicide mission in a sense that you’ll either fall in love with or you’ll just get pissed off. And I must say that I am leaning towards the prior. And when it comes to Bruce Willis? He’s a sweetheart, finally a movie where his character has a purpose, even if he doesn’t speak as much as I’d like.
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The greatest strength of the rough futuristic junkyard is in the confident echo it leaves behind. It was running through my mind even long after I left the cinema, I kept thinking about the individual plot lines, and my joy is mostly spoiled by the fact that the more I ponder, the more logical inconsistencies and paradoxes I find. That said, thanks to the perfect casting with the unwavering Bruce Willis at the forefront, it is a joy to watch this genre mix. The sympathetically uncompromising form makes it easier to overlook the narrative errors. 70% and rounding up for Rian Johnson's undeniable courage.
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