Looper Review
Sooper.
I feel like I have somehow shifted into an alternative Bizarro world where the majority of movies are actually decent and not the intellectual equivalent of blunt trauma to the head. This is the third movie in a row I have watched and thoroughly enjoyed. It actually scares me, in the sense that I feel like we are somehow headed to cinema Armageddon, where the all time worst movie in the history of the world will be released and completely destroy society.
Of course, Jack and Jill has already been released and we survived that, so how bad could it be?
Anyway, Looper. I have said many times that time travel as a plot device is the potty training seat of movie making: there to help a toddler to not soil him or herself and learn to use a toilet like an adult. Whenever a fully grown adult wants to use the training seat it is pathetic and creepy. However, I am going to amend that statement and say that while time travel as a plot device is weak, time travel as a main storyline can be good as long as it is treated properly.
Oh, this film suffers from any of the normal time travel bugaboos. If you think too much about it the paradoxes will hurt your brain, and the fundamental Laws of Thermodynamics are bent over a pinball machine and raped. However, if time travel were feasible then the way it was treated in this film could potentially work without straining your suspension of disbelief to badly (unlike MIB3). It should be obvious to any reader of science fiction that the writer of this film subscribes to the “flowing river of time” theory of time travel rather than the “butterfly effect” theory. In other words, the flow of time has the means and inclination to correct itself and more or less remain on track when hit with minor events but a strong enough event (killing a man in the past, inventing something from the future, etc) will cause the flow of time to completely shift over into something new. Changes are shown for individuals, but the major events and even the individuals are not really affected. This really is the only way to approach a movie like this, although in truth I think the butterfly effect has a lot more credibility (dinosaur image courtesy of the Funny T Shirt category).
However, if you can buy into time travel and are happy with it than this movie is an exceptionally well made and entertaining film. Acting was great from both Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, story was well thought out and complicated enough to hold your attention without being brain strainingly convoluted, and the action was both cool and believable. Overall a great film. Just don’t let your mind wander down the dark paths towards annoying questions like “Why did they need to transport the victims back in time live? Couldn’t they have just transported a corpse? Why couldn’t they have transported them into the heart of an active volcano, or the bottom of the ocean, or the earths core?” Also it wouldn’t be a science fiction movie review from me if I did not point out how bad the science really is. The main issue I spotted here was the idea of being able to send someone back in time yet have them land on the planet Earth at all. There is no known central point in the galaxy and everything’s movement is all based on relative positioning. If you try to send someone back in time 70 years our planet will have traveled billions, if not trillions of miles in that time period and your guy should be on the other side of the universe (which would actually neatly solve your problem with regards to getting rid of a body for you).
I told myself I wouldn’t do this, but since I have started I can’t help but point out another major plot flaw here. If they can send a guy back in time why would they use the machine just for getting rid of inconvenient people? Why not send a guy back to win the lottery six times in a row and start a massive business empire based on futuristic technology? If you timed it to arrive the day after you were born you could make sure your youthful self lived a massive life of luxury and have things good forever.
Anyway, the story. Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt-Inception, 50/50, the Dark Knight Rises) is a Looper, a hit man in a dystopic near future who’s job is to wait at predetermined points for victims from 30 years further to appear and execute them. He and his friends live lives of luxury but are called Loopers because at some point at the end of 30 years they will have to execute themselves to avoid being caught time traveling (I know, I know. It is a less annoying concept when you see the film). Joe’s friend Seth (Paul Dano-There Will be Blood, Knight and Day, Little Miss Sunshine) let’s his future self get away and gets to demonstrate what happens when someone doesn’t close the loop. Joe ends up meeting his future self Older Joe (Bruce Willis-Die Hard, Fifth Element, Pulp Fiction) who manages to get away from him. Now it is a race to catch and kill his future self before the guy in charge catches him and starts cutting off body parts in order to make Older Joe come back in. Older Joe has his own agenda relating to killing a crimelord as a young child before he can become he terror of the future.
Honestly, I don’t want to get too much deeper into the story as I think it really good and you should all see it. The chance of throwing out an accidental spoiler is high. There are some cool twists. There are some great gun fights. Nothing gets blown up in the name of stupid cinematic. The movie ends super cool.
The stars. The story was great. Two stars. Exceptionally well acted by both Willis and Gordon-Levitt. Two stars. Great supporting cast, including a couple hot girls and the main bad guy. There’s also one little kid (Pierce Gagnon-the Crazies, One Tree Hill, the Way Home) who nails it for a ten year old kid. Remarkable. One star. A slight flavoring of a little rated R nudity. One star. A lot of story is delivered with remarkable efficiency. We are treated to a complex story with a minimum of wasted scenes. One star. The ending is really cool. One star. The director managed to avoid the sci fi trap of over explaining everything. One star. Overall a really fun movie. Two stars. Total: eleven stars.
The black holes. While I enjoyed the hell out of this film, there are any number of what I might on a crappier day call massive time travel related plot holes. One black hole. They movie kept showing the police doing…something? I couldn’t figure out if they were working for the bad guy or working against him. One black hole. Total: two black holes.
A grand total of nine stars, and yet another recommendation that you go see this film. I really had fun with it, and I think you will too. Date movie? Maybe. The romance was a little tertiary, but both young and old Joe is what women tell me is hot so I guess it might get your date in the right mood. Of course if you compare unfavorable this could bite you on the ass. Bathroom break? The movie is pretty good in it’s entity, but if you have to go I would say the scene where young Joe wakes up chained to a cot in the barn of the hot chicks farm. Not a lot going on there that you can’t pick up later on.
Thanks for reading. Sorry I haven’t been writing all weekend, but I did a really crummy event (somehow the organizers thought doubling the ticket price was the way to increase attendance). It was a huge waste of time and I lost money. I am a little bitter about it, which means every minute I spend folding and sorting the t-shirts from the show is another hot coal you know where. 
However, the one positive thing from the weekend is I got to spend some time with one of my favorite show celebs, the lovely Ms. Maxine Wasa. She has starred in a number of films most notably My Stepmother is an Alien and is now a scream queen, starring in any number of independent, cool horror films. She has also been recently cast in a biker reality show with mans man Chuck Zito. More importantly, however, she is cool and fun to talk to (not to mention very easy on the eyes). She asked me to mention that she will be participating in the Rock the Walk event in Los Angeles, a benefit concert for AIDS research. If you are going to be in LA next weekend be sure to stop by and check it out. If you see Max tell her I said hi.
Dave
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