Looper

Rian Johnson (The Brothers Bloom, Brick) is the writer and director of this sci-fi film. Like his other projects, this has original if slightly off-kilter thinking in its story. It is not a regular sci-fi movie. There are some crazy ideas going on here. Time travel is not enough. There is also telekinesis, post collapse apocalypse, mob killings, and pre-planned suicide for hire (yeah figure that one out). Does it all make logical sense? I can't tell. But it sure was fun trying to follow it. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is great as the young Bruce Willis. Emily Blunt is refreshingly new. Also staring is Paul Dano and Piper Perabo.

"This time travel crap just fries your brain like an egg." (Abe)

Not since Children of Men (2006) and Source Code (2011) have I been as jazzed up as I am now about Rian Johnson's Looper. Here's sci-fi that will happily fry your brain as you figure out the implications of changing the future by altering the present. Also throw in thoughts about Christopher Nolan's Memento and Inception to get the flavor of Looper.

But as Sinatra sings, "Regrets I've had a few, but then too few to really mention," this film challenges you to think of the implications of reversing those regrets or keeping the future the same because you kind of like the way things went.

Joseph Gordon Levitt's Joe is a "looper," an assassin who goes into the past to murder someone needed to be absent in the future, 2072. The Mob, headed by a very relaxed and dangerous Jeff Daniels as Abe, determines to eliminate all loopers, and Joe is next on the list to kill himself by flashing back. Yes, it's existentially a difficult task, and therein lies the drama of this satisfying sci-fi.

With less CGI and few glitzy machines (in fact most of the vehicles look shabby 2012 and the loopers' weapon is a sawed-off Steampunk shot gun—how's that for past and future?), this thriller relies to an effective degree on the excellent cast to relay the challenges inherent in altering any past.

Because it's an intelligent tale, the overall theme of responsibility for our actions (the existential part) flows quietly from the action, be it as simple as running from the bad guys to the complexity of deciding on the sacrifices willing to be made to alter the future.

A leitmotiv of this film is that no one is immune from the effects of the past, Sinatra notwithstanding in his apparent satisfaction with how things turned out. For Looper, cult status is its future.

i always approach a film especially when it is classified as scifi with liberal suspension of disbelief. because it is only through that that i was able to appreciate such scifi gems as Stargate and Fifth Element and many other that were otherwise written off by these so-called critics.

Looper is one of those films that should be appreciated by its message more than its genre. it uses the science fiction medium, complete with action stunts and wonders, as an apt and well-sculpted vehicle to a very beautiful message of self-sacrifice and positive reinforcement parenthood. the film goes to extra length to make the story plausible and solid and the actors, including the 'rainmaker' child, did a marvelous job of pulling it off.

i've always believed that the soul of any film, even as i appreciate great plot twists and great special fx and great acting and direction (yeah, i said great too many times!), is the message and/or portrait it intends to get across. Looper made a kill for it.

No Spoilers will be shown, the story is basically the public knowledge shown on the trailers.

The story is about this man named Joe who is played by both Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis. Basically his job is a looper. In the Year 2074 civilization has created time travel however it is highly illegal to use it. It is then controlled by the highest criminal mafia in the world. In the future they cannot kill a person, so instead they send them back 30 years and the looper will kill them. When the young Joe saw the Old Joe standing there, he hesitated and the plot clashed.

The story was very confusing at first, but the movie does a good job to explain to us as it goes along. To be honest at first I thought this was going to be bad, the story took some time to build up, and the plot just didn't seem to have any structure. Once the movie did pick up, boy did it pick up. It became intense as the hunter became the hunted.

The story had emotion, action, we laughed and cried. Many places where things appeared to be stupid ended actually be part of the story and working out. There are though, a lot of silly moments in the story that to my opinion could have been left out and the story would have been just as good. The acting was very good. Also kinda shows how much Bruce Willis is getting old, but can still pack a punch. I give this movie an 8.5/10!

When one deals with time travel as the process has not been discovered everything written or filmed about is always speculative. For instance the Jean-Claude Van Damme film Time Cop shows something quite different when we meet our future and past selves as Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis do here in Looper.

Instead of the forces of law and latent fascism getting control of time travel in Time Cop, Looper has organized crime doing it and eliminating problems that Robert DeNiro in Casino remarked are usually swallowed up by the Nevada desert. Levitt is a Looper one who travels ahead to the future, specifically trained as an assassin and then goes back to his present origin and as targets come through a time portal, they get eliminated. Then at some point, the future selves are eliminated and the present selves just go on with normal lives as we define normal.

Bruce Willis is Levitt's future self only he doesn't like the idea of elimination. And the big boss Jeff Daniels doesn't like how Levitt screwed up the elimination of Willis. The chase is on.

Another question answered by Laurence Olivier in The Boys From Brazil said that we should not eliminate a cloned Hitler. Here a telekinesis gene has entered our gene pool and someone in the distant future has been harnessing its full potential to battle organized crime. That's an even bigger mission that the Levitt/Willis problem.

Looper is a nice and original take on time travel with an outstanding cast giving some standout performances. Note particularly Emily Blunt as the mother of young Pierce Gagnon who has powers and abilities far beyond those of other mortal beings. And young Gagnon is something to see as well.

Looper is definitely worth the price of admission.