Looper

WARNING: This review is hidden because it reveals the content of the film.
Click here to show this review. I remember the first time I saw “Looper”. I was blown away. I’m glad to see that it got the recognition it deserved and has become a fan-favourite. This original, exciting and intelligent science fiction story deserves all the attention it can get.

In 2074, time travel will be invented and immediately outlawed. The only time it’s used is by criminal organizations to dispose of undesirables. People are sent back to 2044 and killed by “Loopers”. By the time the police figure something is wrong, the victim has been dead and incinerated for 30 years. When Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) receives an order to kill his future self (played by Bruce Willis), everything changes.

This is a rich science fiction film that keeps getting bigger and bigger. It’s not just our world but with time travel thrown in. This innovation has changed the game. Criminals are using it to clean up after themselves, but they know that messing around with the past is tricky, so there are all sorts of contingencies to try and prevent what is happening in this film from taking place and that makes for great action. When the two Joes come face to face, you can’t wait to see what happens, but it doesn’t go the way you expect it to. What I really like is that old Joe and young Joe, they’re the same person but are also very different. I look back at myself just 10 years ago and honestly, some of the attitudes I had towards people or things, I find it downright embarrassing. Yeah I’m still that guy, but I have complicated feelings towards him and this film explores this concept to it’s fullest. Then, it takes this idea and puts it in a bigger plot. A sci-fi story about two men on the run from the mob and from each other. Then it puts that in an even bigger story when you find out the reason why Old Joe was sent back to the past.

What’s on the surface of “Looper” is just the beginning. It’s like the world has started running out of fuel or something because there are solar panels everywhere and all of the cars have been retrofitted with these weird pipes that go into the intake. It’s not a plot point, it’s just one of those things you notice. A detail that makes you feel like there is a lot happening beyond what the camera is capturing. I don’t know what it is, but it adds to the mood, to the tension. It makes you feel like something could come out of the blue and change the whole plot because nothing is limited to just what’s right there. It’s a rich universe.

There are points where “Looper” gets very cerebral. Time loops, paradoxes, telekinesis, changing the future, confronting the past, accounting for your sins, justifying your actions… depending on what point of the film you’re at, you’ll feel differently about Old Joe and Young Joe because they are both villain and hero in their own way. It’s fascinating stuff and made even sweeter by the fact that this picture contains a lot of great action. This is what you want in a roller-coaster ride of a sci-fi flick. It isn’t afraid to discuss complicated subject when it isn’t having car chases, tense hostage situations or all-out gunfights. Then there are moments where the picture slows down and genuine human emotion comes in. These people are not robots. They are capable of feeling guilt or of looking back at their actions. It helps make you care about who is going to make it out alive, and who isn’t.

“Looper” is original; it’s exciting, continuously changing and intelligent. You’ll find some strong performances within not only from the leads, but also from Emily Blunt and young Pierce Gagnon. The way these characters interact and how the film plays out in the end, it’s a joy to discuss and analyze with your friends. Writer/director Rian Johnson is set to write and direct the upcoming “Star Wars Episode Viii” and if you have any concerns that it won’t be great, watch this picture and you’ll be completely put at ease. It’s the best time travel science fiction film I’d seen in a long time when I went to the theatre to check it out back in 2012 and it has in no way lost it’s lustre. (Theatrical version on the big screen, February 10, 2016)