Time travel movies rock! I may have only a high-school-level understanding of Temporal Physics but I’m fascinated by the arguments Sci-Fi movies raise: is Time/History set in stone as per The Planet of the Apes pentalogy (the original Sixties/Seventies films, not the remakes), Timeline, Time After Time and Twelve Monkeys…or is it fluid, subject to change as per Back to the Future, Timecop and The Sound of Thunder (the story, not the awful movie)? Maybe it doesn’t matter like The Terminator and Time Bandits. I won’t spoil Looper though, you have to see which approach(es) is taken.
I had been seeing the trailers since The Dark Knight Rises as part of the Joseph Gordon-Levitt barrage. My reservation was Bruce Willis, I can’t stand him. He has been in several favorites in the past yet casting him seemed arbitrary in The Fifth Element (another actor would’ve been better) and Twelve Monkeys. Unlike Ah-hold, Willis is rather generic to me, other than his smarmy demeanor, there isn’t anything particularly distinctive about his acting to me. Admittedly, I’ve never seen any Die Hard flicks neither, I just don’t see the point, his off-camera assholery is another reason I tune him out. Then more reviews and press started to roll in, mostly positive. I put aside my dislike of Bruce to help Joseph, he was pretty clever in Twelve Things I Hate About You.
I’m not ruining anything here thanks to the numerous trailers.
Sometime in the 21st Century, time travel is figured out and quickly made illegal. Organized crime still has access to the means so its enemies/rivals/whoever are transported back in time where a specialized assassin called a looper is waiting to execute the target. Why go through all this trouble? In the latter half of 21st Century, it’s impossible to dispose of a corpse without the authorities finding it and identifying the victim. Thus, send the mark back to the days before such means existed.
Joe makes a pretty lucrative living as a looper, especially in light of how crappy the near future has panned out to be in 2044 AD; rampant homelessness, squalor, crumbling infrastructure, roaming gangs, etc. Until the person he has to kill is his future self and he fails. If he didn’t, it would be a short movie. Plus there’s an element of deja vu for those familiar with Twelve Monkeys.
From there Looper turns into an Action movie since the SciFi is low-key, low-tech and more of a philosophical debate. I didn’t mind, the latter aspect is what intrigued me. Who doesn’t ponder what a conversation would be like between you and your younger/older self? What do you talk about? Do you spoil the future for the younger version? Do you fight like hell to prevent the outcome you know did/will/could happen? Can you stop it or were you instrumental in it? Trust me, Looper answers the questions through Joe and Older Joe’s actions.
Besides Gordon-Levitt, Jeff Daniels did a great job as the Outfit’s representative from the future. He’s menacing without being violent or creepy like Christopher Walken. He also gets to be funny, you have to see it to hear his best joke.
There are some extraneous McGuffins. My friend Lester saids, SciFi and Fantasy movies should only receive one to be plausible. Looper has at least two that I felt were rather telegraphed at a key point. This doesn’t ruin the movie but you know they will be used at critical moments.
In an era in which Hollywood pushes for flashy, extravagant and flashy, Looper is a well-done Low-Fi/Sci-Fi film. It will live on as a key member of the Essential Library of Time Travel Movies.
I wish I could remember what Alamo showed before the movie in the pre-show. I’m certain it wasn’t anything dealing with time travel, probably some generic stuff from the Thirties I saw at another quote-along.