Looper - B+

Quick Hit: Great Sci-Fi that is action packed and presents lots of questions (not all of which are answered).

Does anybody else like JGL (Joseph Gordon-Levitt)? I think that he is a tremendous actor that uses star power to get movies made that no one else would want to (like a Fraggle Rock Movie – I’m rooting for it). It’s the fact that I like him so much that I think it was a shame this movie hid his very expressive face behind a mask of makeup and CGI in order to make him look more like Bruce Willis. I mean come on, we suspend disbelief in movies all the time – is it really that much of a stretch to ask us to believe that JGL could grow up to be a bald action star?

Anyways, I got ahead of myself. The movie that I’m reviewing today is Looper. It’s a decent science fiction flick that features a lot of time travel. The basic gist is that JGL is a “looper” – a person hired by the future mob to shoot people that they illegally send back to the past. Eventually, the mob will send ​​that future person back to be killed by themselves - known 

I mean come on.

in the movie as “closing the loop”. Does it sound confusing? At times it can be until the story really gets going with showing you what is happening rather than just saying it. Eventually what happens is Bruce Willis is sent back to JGL to have the loop “closed” but escapes. He then heads out to kill the kid who ends up growing up to be the “Big Bad” of the future world.

Time travel movies can get really muddy. There are so many paradoxes, along with questions that come with them when it comes to this subject matter. Sometimes it’s hard for certain viewers (like myself) to sit through them when these questions aren’t answered in an acceptable fashion. But the mark of a time travel movie that is done well is one that still makes you enjoy it, despite all the questions it doesn’t answer. I’d mark this as a good movie.

One of the things that it does so well is play with what you think is going to happen. There is a scene in the beginning where Paul Dano’s character (names aren’t really important in this movie) chooses not to close the loop, gets captured, and then subsequently communicate with the future self by torturing the current self. This leads to a horrific scene where the man literally seems to fall apart between your eyes (I didn’t see the violence of that coming). The next scene(s) that I refer to get a bit more in-depth with the plot, so I’m going to put a spoiler note in here.
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He knows what's about to happen to him.

Eventually, JGL figures out where Bruce Willis is going and heads there. It’s a tiny little farmhouse where the rest of the movie takes place. I kept expecting the movie to shift back to the city after all the dark, glib action, but it doesn’t – it stays out in the country as JGL hangs out with Emily Blunt.

Speaking of Emily Blunt, I have ranted before about how good she is, but she is one of the few characters (Jeff Daniels and Bruce Willis aside) that I really believed her motivation. She is believable in a way that most of the other characters are, and that is really a compliment to her acting.

This is scene was awesome...

And it's official that this SHOULD HAPPEN. Kevin Feige, please take my vote into consideration with casting. Note (added 03 AUG 2016) : I wrote this review in May when I originally watched the film. I know that Brie Larson is now cast as Ms. Marvel. I think she'll do fine, but she's no Emily Blunt.

So, I just read back over this review, and it’s a bit all over the place (shouldn’t it be that way when written about a time travel film???). So, allow me to sum up really quick. This movie is action packed, fun, and thought provoking. I’m going to give it a “B+”.

For more on this film, check out IMDB.