The year is 2072 and 30
years into the future it is hard for the mob to eliminate bodies. So they send them back in time to be killed
by a Looper. A Looper is someone who is
paid in silver to do the killing and elimination of the body from the
future. So there would be no trace of
it. If you decide to quite being a
Looper, or the crime bosses terminate your contract, you live for 30 years
before they send you back to the past where you end up killing yourself and
getting a gold payoff.
One day for Joe who is a
wise Looper who plays by the rules has his future self shows up and
escapes. The chase is on as future and
past Joe meet and try to talk about changing the past and killing the
Rainmaker. For if they do kill the
Rainmaker as a child the future won’t happen and future Joe’s life would be ok.
Thus is the dilemma as young Joe thinks not and wants to stop his future self.
Well I have to say that
Looper is a pretty good movie and one of the best written movies I have seen
this year. It was extremely clever even
with the ending. I know that I’ve been
advocating easy plots and non-brain busting complicated scenarios lately but,
well, every once in a while you need to go see a movie that challenges your
brain and keeps you thinking for hours after watching it.
Which I did, a lot. I thought about this movie for quite some
time after watching it. I just thought
this movie was pretty cool. Finally an
original idea from Hollywood and it is in the independent film produced by its
star Joseph Gordon- Levitt. Who I have
to say is starting to be one of my new favorite actors. He was really good in Looper and was really
good in Batman earlier this summer. The
fact that he went and altered himself to look like Bruce Willis makes you know
how dedicated he was to make this movie.
Truly a good make job as he did look a bit like Bruce Willis.
What I really liked about
this movie was that the time travel was more or less in the background and did
not take center stage. Far too many
times in a movie that involves time travel the writers and makers of the movie
has it as the focal point of the movie. Looper
is the exception as it doesn’t fall into that trap and that is probably why I
enjoyed Looper so much.
I really enjoyed the
overall story of Looper having the two Joes at odds with each other. It seemed odd but it did give it an alternate
reality to it. Old Joe was so brutal and
so hell bent on saving his future that he would go to no lengths to save his
wife in his timeline. I also like when
young Joe was on Sara’s farm. Here you
see a part of Joe and get to know more about him. Plus the relationship he builds with Cid is
touching also and does have implications on the ending.
Cid really freaked me
out. Cid is a TK, as is his mom, but
more of a mutant type with strange powers.
As it turns out young Joe is in essence befriending with the person who
sends him back to die. Something that we
learn is that Joe shaped his own future and it is with this turn of events that
might change things. Plus Cid’s mom is
played by Emily Blunt who I find really attractive and is a wonderful
actress. In fact this is one of her best
performances that I have seen from her.
Oh by the way this movie
had quite a bit of action in it also. In
fact it had a lot of action. Not only
was this a movie that you had to think and concentrate on the events going on
but there were quiet a lot of gun fights going on to make the cast of The
Expendables smile. Lots of great scenes
involving Bruce Willis being the action hero and I loved seeing that.
This movie was really
surprising and had a pretty good story going on. It was smart and intelligent and did not talk
down to the audience. Yes it was
complicated at times but not so much as to not enjoy it. The performances were great and really made
you feel for the characters and the situations they were in. So if you are up to giving your brain a
workout with enough mindless action to give it a break then go see Looper and
your brain will thank you for it.
Spoiler Comment - The rules of time travel as displayed in this movie - are that when something happens to an earlier self of someone, it automatically happens to the future self. Example - cutting off a hand of younger self and the older self's hand just vanishes. While this method is flawed I can buy it but then when one character kills himself, shouldn't the old self just turn into a pile of bones and not just vanish?
ReplyDeleteNo it would mean his future self would never have existed.
ReplyDeleteNever existed? You would think but not in this movie. Earlier when that guy lost limb after limb it was obvious that the changes made to the younger self changes the body of the older self. If that guy had no legs for 30 years do you think he would have crawled away from his younger self? Would't he had prosthetics? If the movie wanted to stick with changing the future changes outcomes it should have done it differently. The changes made to present day bodies was instant to the future selves but the altering of actions did not seem to matter as much.
ReplyDelete