Looper

Looper is currently being hailed by some as the time travel movie that redefines time travel movies.  Since opening last week it has taken over the #1 spot in the box office and has over a 90% ranking on  Rotten Tomatoes  But is it that good?

Looper does have an interesting and new take on time travel.  Jeff Daniels says it best, "This time travel crap, it fries your brain like an egg".  Very true.  Trying to understand a time travel movie and the mechanics and reality behind it is almost as exhausting as creating the world, rules, and consequences.  Really Rian Johnson probably deserves the most credit out of the whole cast and crew for being able to not only direct this movie, but also write a movie that, in my opinion, has very few holes and does a great job explaining the physics of a world where time travel is possible.  Rian Johnson really hasn't done anything else other than write and direct a little known movie, The Brothers Bloom, and direct a few episodes of Breaking Bad.  But this movie underscores his potential as both a writer and director.

Looper is about a future in which time travel has been invented but outlawed.  The most dangerous mobs in the future use it now to dispose of people they want dead.  Apparently in the future, murder is much more difficult to get away with due to an advanced tracking system.  So the mob sends the victim back to the past where they have an assassin, or Looper waiting to kill them.  Sometimes when the mob sees fit, they want to seperate themselves from their current Looper.  They do this by sending back the Looper's future self, and the Looper kills themself from the future, effectively closing the loop.  They are paid very well and then have the next 30 years to enjoy life before the mob kidnaps them, sends them back to the past and they get killed.  Confused?  Yeah, its a movie you have to see.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Joe, a top-notch Looper who one day is forced to close his loop when his future self appears as the target played by Bruce Willis.  Future Joe has come back on purpose to the past to change the past and prevent his loop from being closed.  The two then embark on a mission from opposite ends and different goals which is weird since they are the same person.

While the story was great and the action was good, my one flaw I felt the movie had was the makeup on Levitt. I feel like they used a lot of makeup and prosthetics to make him look more like Bruce Willis.  It was weird to kind of see a familiar face but then not.  I don't feel like any of the changes they made to Levitt's face really made him look more like Bruce Willis, other than contacts to change his eye color. And sometimes I felt like the makeup was harsher than other times. Another words it wasn't consistent the way he looked in every scene. I feel like they could have left that out and it would have been better.

Overall I really liked the movie.  I think it was great and different and entertaining.  I do not think it revolutionizes time travel movies though like Terminator, Bill and Ted's, 12 Monkeys, or Back to the Future did.  But I do think it was a fresh take and well done. I give the film 4 stars and definitely recommend taking a look at it in theaters.



Movie Poster from: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1276104/