With a story centred around time travel and hitmen, a cast headed by Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon-Levitt and very strong support from the likes of Emily Blunt, Looper has been getting a lot of press. Most of it, I thought, was very justified.
In the future, crime syndicates are so big they own the very best technologies, including time travel. When they want someone disappeared they literally do that, sending them back in time to be executed by a Looper – a contract hitman who asks no questions and takes payment in the gold and silver strapped to his victim. Joe is one such Looper, and then the hit that appears before him, is himself from the future, and he’s on a mission.
From start to finish Looper enthralls. Notably for a film about time travel it doesn’t dally with any of the dogma that has weighed down other movies. Looper pays time travel its due respect and gets on with the story. It looks very well made but doesn’t appear to be big budget, with scant glimpses of future cityscapes. Rather it focuses on the characters and story, giving us two polished performances from Willis and Gordon-Levitt, with a stand-out from Emily Blunt that anchors the other two. My overriding sense throughout was of a captivating and visually compelling story as we first figured what the old Joe’s mission was and then weighed its worth. It has been one of the most difficult stories for me to summarise because so much of what it’s about is wrapped around the end.
Unfortunately the end, despite it’s impact, gave up on the chance to resonate beyond the credits. Instead it moralised about our future being dependent on what we do now, with a slight of hand thrown in that invoked M. Night Shyamalan. I have no problem with moralising at all, if it fits the story. However, it’s only at the end we realise key elements of the story have been stepped around to make it all pay dividends. It didn’t so much leave a bad taste but a knot of disappointment that remains, having been so enthralled throughout.
Looper is a movie well worth your time. It is imaginative filmmaking at its best despite a finale that wasn’t quite the sum of all it’s parts.
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My expectations for this film based on trailers and synopsis was completely different from what i actually saw. I was really looking forward to watching it and for the first hour or so i was glued to the screen. It starts with an interesting premise (if you dont understand it just use your imagination) but i agree with the other reviewer that for the second half it does a complete 180 and goes off on an unsatisfying tangent. There was an obvious ending that would have been satisfying but they instead went with one that just felt cliched. Its like the first half was written and directed by one guy and the second half was written and directed by a completely different guy. Watch the trailers again after you watch the film. They make you think the film is going to be about something completely different and make the film look a lot better than it actually is and what you thought the main storyline was going to be quickly becomes forgotten half way through. It could have been “The Most Exciting Film Of The Year” if they had rewritten the second half and gone for the ending that everyone was probably wanting all the way through.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Looper is a high concept science fiction/crime drama, which arrives on the back of some great reviews proclaiming it to be genuinely original and pretty special.
With films that come along with that kind of baggage, it’s often best to just judge them for yourself.
So you may wish to stop reading and go and buy the dvd.
Want to know more first? Alright then…
Time travel doesn’t exist. Yet. But thirty years from now [or from the near future date when the film is set] it will. But it will be controlled by organised crime. Who will use it to make their enemies disappear. On a one way trip back to the past. Where they are shot by special hitmen. Called Loopers. The mob has people back in the past – as it were – to control all this. Loopers are handsomely paid. In silver. And may be required to kill their future selves. This is known as closing the loop. It’s not a job for those who think long term.
Joe [Joseph Gordon-Levitt] is a looper. And he does think long term. He’s planning to get out of the job and run off abroad with his lady love. But when his next target is his future self [Bruce Willis], and said future Joe gets away and has plans of his own, Joe has problems to deal with.
Everything leads him to a remote farmhouse. And the woman [Emily Blunt] and the strange boy who live there. None of their lives will ever be the same again…
There’s a lot of exposition there to set the whole thing up. Which is a little bit of a problem with the opening. It does take a while for you to get used to the style of the film and take in all the exposition, and get used to the style of the movie as well. Even when you do get into it there are long moments of character drama that some will find engrossing, but may not appeal to all.
The setting is, as mentioned, near future, and the look of the whole thing is nicely done. Most things are recognisable, but certain things such as the guns and the motorbikes [or hoverbikes, as they are] are recognisably different.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt wears some prosthetics to make him look like a younger Bruce Willis. This works pretty well. The fact that the two Joes can’t stand each other adds nice character drama. Emily Blunt is very good in a role that is totally different to anything she’s ever done before, with a very different accent to usual as well. The child actor playing the boy is exceptional.
Looper, being all about time travel, does thus bring up a lot of questions and possible plot holes about the whole thing might work. Perhaps the best approach to this is to go with the advice Basil Exposition offered in Austin Powers two; ‘Just try not to worry about any of that.’ That way you’ll be fine. Sometimes suspension of disbelief helps.
It’s loaded with various metaphors and uses the scenario as a way to make it’s audience think about things such as destiny. It’s violent but never gratuitious or too bloody [thus it’s a 15 rather than an 18] and it’s the kind of film you can watch again and discover new things when you do.
It’s a clever and original piece of film making, and one that is worth a watch. But what you think of it ultimately is going to be a matter of opinion. Perhaps I would have gone up to five stars if I’d gone into it without having read any of the five star reviews that various critics gave it. But I didn’t. Even so, it’s definitely worth four stars, and definitely worth trying.
And the lenticular cover on the dvd box is pretty cool.
The disc has the following language and subtitle options:
Languages: English.
Subtitles: English.
It opens with several trailers, but you can skip these via the next or the menu buttons on the dvd remote.
Extras are:
Commentary on the film from write/director Rian Johnson, plus stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Emily Blunt.
A seven minute long making of feature. Which is cursory but okay for what it is.
Scoring Looper: three five minute long previews of sections of the score that the composer of it posted online before the movie coming out. These can only be watched all in a row rather than individually. But will appeal to the musically minded because of the details he goes into about how certain parts were created.
An animated trailer for the film. This is completely different to the original cinema trailer. It runs for a minute. It is stylish and eye catching and contains flashing images so epileptics beware.
Plus four deleted scenes, that can be watched individually or all in a row. If you do the latter they run for nine minutes in total. They can also be watched with a commentary from Rian Johnson and one of the supporting cast.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Great entertainment,
With a story centred around time travel and hitmen, a cast headed by Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon-Levitt and very strong support from the likes of Emily Blunt, Looper has been getting a lot of press. Most of it, I thought, was very justified.
In the future, crime syndicates are so big they own the very best technologies, including time travel. When they want someone disappeared they literally do that, sending them back in time to be executed by a Looper – a contract hitman who asks no questions and takes payment in the gold and silver strapped to his victim. Joe is one such Looper, and then the hit that appears before him, is himself from the future, and he’s on a mission.
From start to finish Looper enthralls. Notably for a film about time travel it doesn’t dally with any of the dogma that has weighed down other movies. Looper pays time travel its due respect and gets on with the story. It looks very well made but doesn’t appear to be big budget, with scant glimpses of future cityscapes. Rather it focuses on the characters and story, giving us two polished performances from Willis and Gordon-Levitt, with a stand-out from Emily Blunt that anchors the other two. My overriding sense throughout was of a captivating and visually compelling story as we first figured what the old Joe’s mission was and then weighed its worth. It has been one of the most difficult stories for me to summarise because so much of what it’s about is wrapped around the end.
Unfortunately the end, despite it’s impact, gave up on the chance to resonate beyond the credits. Instead it moralised about our future being dependent on what we do now, with a slight of hand thrown in that invoked M. Night Shyamalan. I have no problem with moralising at all, if it fits the story. However, it’s only at the end we realise key elements of the story have been stepped around to make it all pay dividends. It didn’t so much leave a bad taste but a knot of disappointment that remains, having been so enthralled throughout.
Looper is a movie well worth your time. It is imaginative filmmaking at its best despite a finale that wasn’t quite the sum of all it’s parts.
I hope you find this helpful.
Was this review helpful to you?
|Not What I Expected,
My expectations for this film based on trailers and synopsis was completely different from what i actually saw. I was really looking forward to watching it and for the first hour or so i was glued to the screen. It starts with an interesting premise (if you dont understand it just use your imagination) but i agree with the other reviewer that for the second half it does a complete 180 and goes off on an unsatisfying tangent. There was an obvious ending that would have been satisfying but they instead went with one that just felt cliched. Its like the first half was written and directed by one guy and the second half was written and directed by a completely different guy. Watch the trailers again after you watch the film. They make you think the film is going to be about something completely different and make the film look a lot better than it actually is and what you thought the main storyline was going to be quickly becomes forgotten half way through. It could have been “The Most Exciting Film Of The Year” if they had rewritten the second half and gone for the ending that everyone was probably wanting all the way through.
Was this review helpful to you?
|The loop of life and death,
Looper is a high concept science fiction/crime drama, which arrives on the back of some great reviews proclaiming it to be genuinely original and pretty special.
With films that come along with that kind of baggage, it’s often best to just judge them for yourself.
So you may wish to stop reading and go and buy the dvd.
Want to know more first? Alright then…
Time travel doesn’t exist. Yet. But thirty years from now [or from the near future date when the film is set] it will. But it will be controlled by organised crime. Who will use it to make their enemies disappear. On a one way trip back to the past. Where they are shot by special hitmen. Called Loopers. The mob has people back in the past – as it were – to control all this. Loopers are handsomely paid. In silver. And may be required to kill their future selves. This is known as closing the loop. It’s not a job for those who think long term.
Joe [Joseph Gordon-Levitt] is a looper. And he does think long term. He’s planning to get out of the job and run off abroad with his lady love. But when his next target is his future self [Bruce Willis], and said future Joe gets away and has plans of his own, Joe has problems to deal with.
Everything leads him to a remote farmhouse. And the woman [Emily Blunt] and the strange boy who live there. None of their lives will ever be the same again…
There’s a lot of exposition there to set the whole thing up. Which is a little bit of a problem with the opening. It does take a while for you to get used to the style of the film and take in all the exposition, and get used to the style of the movie as well. Even when you do get into it there are long moments of character drama that some will find engrossing, but may not appeal to all.
The setting is, as mentioned, near future, and the look of the whole thing is nicely done. Most things are recognisable, but certain things such as the guns and the motorbikes [or hoverbikes, as they are] are recognisably different.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt wears some prosthetics to make him look like a younger Bruce Willis. This works pretty well. The fact that the two Joes can’t stand each other adds nice character drama. Emily Blunt is very good in a role that is totally different to anything she’s ever done before, with a very different accent to usual as well. The child actor playing the boy is exceptional.
Looper, being all about time travel, does thus bring up a lot of questions and possible plot holes about the whole thing might work. Perhaps the best approach to this is to go with the advice Basil Exposition offered in Austin Powers two; ‘Just try not to worry about any of that.’ That way you’ll be fine. Sometimes suspension of disbelief helps.
It’s loaded with various metaphors and uses the scenario as a way to make it’s audience think about things such as destiny. It’s violent but never gratuitious or too bloody [thus it’s a 15 rather than an 18] and it’s the kind of film you can watch again and discover new things when you do.
It’s a clever and original piece of film making, and one that is worth a watch. But what you think of it ultimately is going to be a matter of opinion. Perhaps I would have gone up to five stars if I’d gone into it without having read any of the five star reviews that various critics gave it. But I didn’t. Even so, it’s definitely worth four stars, and definitely worth trying.
And the lenticular cover on the dvd box is pretty cool.
The disc has the following language and subtitle options:
Languages: English.
Subtitles: English.
It opens with several trailers, but you can skip these via the next or the menu buttons on the dvd remote.
Extras are:
Commentary on the film from write/director Rian Johnson, plus stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Emily Blunt.
A seven minute long making of feature. Which is cursory but okay for what it is.
Scoring Looper: three five minute long previews of sections of the score that the composer of it posted online before the movie coming out. These can only be watched all in a row rather than individually. But will appeal to the musically minded because of the details he goes into about how certain parts were created.
An animated trailer for the film. This is completely different to the original cinema trailer. It runs for a minute. It is stylish and eye catching and contains flashing images so epileptics beware.
Plus four deleted scenes, that can be watched individually or all in a row. If you do the latter they run for nine minutes in total. They can also be watched with a commentary from Rian Johnson and one of the supporting cast.
Was this review helpful to you?
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