Looper

Looper (2012)

Image From IMDB

To be honest i’m not the biggest fan of time travel movies––as i’ve probably mentioned on here before––but Looper is a great example of it done right. It can proudly sit alongside Terminator and Back to the Future as time travel flicks which don’t annoy me because of overly complex rules and too many massive logic gaps.

I’ll always accept some degree of having to be open-minded within the science of time travel, but I hate getting bogged down in it, and Looper seemed to feel the same with the characters constantly dismissing the nonsense around the impossible concept. Time travel can be fun, as long as it isn’t overly explained and abused.

Looper follows Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Joe as he works as a Looper, someone who kills people sent from the future to the past. But, when his future self is sent back, things get complicated. He learns that in the future someone is taking over, and they’re getting all the Loopers killed in the process. Joe, and his older self (Bruce Willis) have to work out why, while having their own beef.

It’s a fantastic concept, and cleanly told, despite the multiple layers of ideas. Long before Rian fucked up Star Wars he could do no wrong in my eyes with Brick and The Brothers Bloom both being great movies, but Looper was his masterpiece.

The sequence with the amazing Paul Dano and his older self was insane, and like nothing i’d ever seen on screen before. Joseph Gordon playing a younger Bruce Willis was one of the best examples of young and older selves since De-Niro and Brando. Jeff Daniels felt like he’d walked straight out of one of the coolest computer games you’d ever played. Emily Blunt was great. The whole cast brought their A game, and together with a solid script and strong dialogue, everyone elevated this fantastic genre piece.

The central story theme of ‘if you could kill baby Hitler would you?’ was handled incredibly well with the different viewpoints presented in an intelligent and intriguing manner. The violence was a mixture of cartoonish and brutal with the blunderbuss and amputations. As mentioned, the dialogue was all super cool, but broken up with different characters failing at their tasks and coming across as stupid to raise the stakes. Everything worked.

The standout scene for me outside of the incredible Older Paul Dano (Seth) sequence was Bruce and Joseph in the diner. Joe admonishing his younger self was just genius, and the sort of scene everyone could relate too. The things we’d say to our former selves with years more experience and knowledge of what the future holds.

The world building in Looper is right up there with the best for me. I won’t quite compare it to Blade Runner, but I got similar vibes with so many sci-fi ideas playing out in the background as part of the scenery rather than central story.

Honestly, I have no criticism of Looper to offer at all. I loved everything about it when I saw it in the cinema thirteen years back, and have loved every viewing since. It’s a perfect sci-fi movie, and a must watch for all fans of the genre.