Every Summer, movie fans see big-budget blockbusters like Tranformers 7, and whine about why we don’t get smart action movies anymore. Here’s some advice, it helps if you give your money to the movies that try to challenge you. I’m happy that Inception made as much money as it did, because it proved that smart movies could be very successful. This is where the catch 22 comes in. If a multi-layered movie is well-liked then the hipsters declare that it is unintelligible garbage full of plotholes. You can’t please everyone.
I’m very optimistic about Looper’s director Rian Johnson future films. His past 2 movies were Brick (also with JGL) and The Brother Bloom. Two surprise favorites in the past few years. He also directed that terribly annoying but unforgettable “Fly” episode of Breaking Bad. I hope he and Duncan Jones (Moon, Source Code) keep making movies for the long haul.
When I’m summarizing the plot of other movies, I can generally cover them in two sentences. This one may be difficult.
The year is 2044. The near future isn’t much more advanced than our present state. Actually it seems like we live in more of a 2nd world country. Joseph Gordon Levitt plays Joe, a looper. You see, there are a group of Loopers, who are hitmen who know the time and place of their next hit, because their targets are being sent from 30 years in the future by the loopers’ employers. They do this so the bodies won’t be traceable, because they literally didn’t exist 30 years in the past. The upside of being a looper is that you live the life of luxury, but the downside is that you sign a contract that in 30 years, you will give yourself up, to be killed….by yourself. Don’t over think it. It works.
Enter Bruce Willis. Bruce plays old Joe. He knows his fate and is determined at every point to get the upper hand. But if young Joe doesn’t fulfill his mission, he becomes the target. And that’s where I’ll end it.
JGL is great as a young Bruce Willis. His makeup is distracting for 2 minutes but you start to see Willis’s mannerisms and facial ticks in his face. After his misstep in Premium Rush, I can easily see JGL becoming a true star. Please be picky with those scripts Joseph. Bruce Willis was sought by the director for this role and I could not be happier. He almost chooses as many bad scripts as Nicolas Cage, but he has struck gold with this one. Emily Blunt appears about 30 minutes into the movie and is a great as a mother who boasts more strength than she might actually have.
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| “Tell ’em Mikhail Gorbachev says Yippee Ki Yay, Mother ….” |
There are so many great things about this film. At no point does it treat the audience like morons. It may leave you scratching your head for a few minutes, but when you unravel what’s actually happening, you feel rewarded. Time travel is a tough subject to cover, but this movie does just enough to be smart and not boring.
I enjoy a movie if I can disappear in it and be emotionally attached. At several points, when I felt I liked a certain Joe more than the other, they do something that changes their character all together. At times I hated each one, whereas I feared for their safety at others.
Is this a movie the general public will love? Probably not. The action is short but brutal. But a car chase in this movie would have been out of place and annoying. Much of the movie plays out like a drama. And that’s a very good thing. If you’ve been begging for smart sci-fi, this is your movie.
Looper is a See It. Support this movie, so we can get more like it!
