![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Looper posits a future world (mostly US/Kansas) that is somewhat decayed and dystopian - heavy Blade Runner influences throughout- but mixed with pragmatic back-to-manual-labor farming. The movie posits that in this future time travel hasn't been invented yet, but it will be invented about 30 years farther into the future. Considered dangerous and outlawed, time travel is used by criminal gangs to get rid of people untraceably. Grab 'em, zap 'em back to the past where hired thugs - loopers - kill their targets and dispose of the bodies. Eventually, the looper has to kill his future self, closing the loop and setting in motion a 30-year clock that counts down the looper's remaining life.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis both turn in good performances as a looper (Joe) and his future self (old Joe). Emily Blunt does a great job as a single mom trying to make a life with the troubled son she abandoned two years previously, both now caught up in Joe's story. I think the movie tackles some difficult and interesting things, and does an admirable job, but is fatally flawed.
Good stuff first: I liked the way the future was portrayed. Things were different, but also the same. Public libraries offer free access to the Net on clear translucent pop-up display screens, but you can still print things out on paper. There are many new cars and motorcycles, but they're the playthings of rich people. The general populace deals with what look like typical cars, often retrofitted with some newish gear like solar panels or a fuel recycling system.
Movies often try to make SF futures look too different when in fact stuff changes much more slowly than we think it does. In Loopers, farmers still pull out stumps by hacking at them with axes or using a chain attached to a plow, but they also have Roomba-like small-scale crop dusters that can be programmed to fly over a field autonomously. It's a very clever mix. Likewise, clothing and hair are subtly different - e.g. there are jackets that close without obvious buttons or zippers, but shoes are still shoes and people still wear neckties (though they may get mocked for being deliberately retro).
As I mentioned, this is really a three-person movie and all three leads turn in good performances. Gordon-Levitt gives his gunslinging junkie character a surprising amount of depth and complexity, Blunt is stellar as a flawed woman trying to do her best in some very scary circumstances, and Willis is good as the older generation.
As an aside, I find Willis is doing a spectacular job of aging into older-generation roles. He's not trying to play down or play younger than he is, but he's still carrying his characters with strength and flair. The last person I can think of who made this young-guy-role to old-guy-role this well is Morgan Freeman and while I wouldn't put Willis into Freeman's class as a pure actor, it's interesting to see how he's making this transition. I think Hollywood is still flailing around badly trying to figure out how to star older actors, and appeal to an aging audience, when it has been so relentlessly youth-focused up to now. It's certainly doing better with male actors than with female.
The movie's ending caught me by surprise. It requires a unique moment of revelation on Joe's part and how he responds to that revelation. I confess I didn't see it coming. Generally the scripting and dialog are like that - good quality, not too predictable.
Also big props to writer-director Rian Johnson for what he chose to leave OFF camera. The movie elides several scenes that could have been much more gory, and skips over its only real sex scene, in ways that seem to work and aren't forced. At one point Old Joe initiates a bloodbath, wiping out most of the loopers and the hired guns/gangsters around them. But it's filmed as Willis in fairly tight frame, shooting at things that are off-camera. Later you see blood and bodies, but the scene could easy have been filmed as much more gore-splash.
So what's wrong with the movie? There are two problems with the plot, one of which is just argh-tastic and the other is this time-travel paradox thing.
( Major spoilers here )
Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis both turn in good performances as a looper (Joe) and his future self (old Joe). Emily Blunt does a great job as a single mom trying to make a life with the troubled son she abandoned two years previously, both now caught up in Joe's story. I think the movie tackles some difficult and interesting things, and does an admirable job, but is fatally flawed.
Good stuff first: I liked the way the future was portrayed. Things were different, but also the same. Public libraries offer free access to the Net on clear translucent pop-up display screens, but you can still print things out on paper. There are many new cars and motorcycles, but they're the playthings of rich people. The general populace deals with what look like typical cars, often retrofitted with some newish gear like solar panels or a fuel recycling system.
Movies often try to make SF futures look too different when in fact stuff changes much more slowly than we think it does. In Loopers, farmers still pull out stumps by hacking at them with axes or using a chain attached to a plow, but they also have Roomba-like small-scale crop dusters that can be programmed to fly over a field autonomously. It's a very clever mix. Likewise, clothing and hair are subtly different - e.g. there are jackets that close without obvious buttons or zippers, but shoes are still shoes and people still wear neckties (though they may get mocked for being deliberately retro).
As I mentioned, this is really a three-person movie and all three leads turn in good performances. Gordon-Levitt gives his gunslinging junkie character a surprising amount of depth and complexity, Blunt is stellar as a flawed woman trying to do her best in some very scary circumstances, and Willis is good as the older generation.
As an aside, I find Willis is doing a spectacular job of aging into older-generation roles. He's not trying to play down or play younger than he is, but he's still carrying his characters with strength and flair. The last person I can think of who made this young-guy-role to old-guy-role this well is Morgan Freeman and while I wouldn't put Willis into Freeman's class as a pure actor, it's interesting to see how he's making this transition. I think Hollywood is still flailing around badly trying to figure out how to star older actors, and appeal to an aging audience, when it has been so relentlessly youth-focused up to now. It's certainly doing better with male actors than with female.
The movie's ending caught me by surprise. It requires a unique moment of revelation on Joe's part and how he responds to that revelation. I confess I didn't see it coming. Generally the scripting and dialog are like that - good quality, not too predictable.
Also big props to writer-director Rian Johnson for what he chose to leave OFF camera. The movie elides several scenes that could have been much more gory, and skips over its only real sex scene, in ways that seem to work and aren't forced. At one point Old Joe initiates a bloodbath, wiping out most of the loopers and the hired guns/gangsters around them. But it's filmed as Willis in fairly tight frame, shooting at things that are off-camera. Later you see blood and bodies, but the scene could easy have been filmed as much more gore-splash.
So what's wrong with the movie? There are two problems with the plot, one of which is just argh-tastic and the other is this time-travel paradox thing.
( Major spoilers here )
