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"Looper" Review: A Once In A Generation Sci-Fi Mas

ramonmercado

ramonmercado

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Looper looks interesting, it got a 5 star review in the Irish Times today. Heres a review from Space.com with duscussion and trailer vid.

"Looper" Review: A Once In A Generation Sci-Fi Masterpiece
http://www.space.com/17812-looper-movie ... piece.html
Lucas Siegel, Newsarama Site Editor
Date: 28 September 2012 Time: 10:38 AM ET


Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis as "Joe" in TriStar Pictures, Film District, and End Game Entertainment's action thriller "Looper." Release date: September 28, 2012.
CREDIT: Alan Markfield/Sony Pictures

Every once in awhile, be it in a novel, a TV show, a short story, a comic book, or a film, a piece of media comes along that, from that point on, other science fiction is judged by.

It happened when Asimov hit the scene, it happened both in the stories and even in films made from writers like Philip K. Dick and Ray Bradbury, and prominent television in recent years pushed science fiction back into the consciousness of the general public, with Lost, Doctor Who, and Battlestar Galactica making scifi something talked about once more at the water cooler or the dinner table.

"Looper" is that piece of media, and it may be the most unique and moving science fiction story of this generation.


The science fiction trappings are there. The story takes place in the future (though not too far from now), and has things like flying motorcycles and a dystopian overpopulated cesspit of a world. There is time travel, though that's actually from much farther in the future. And there are superpowers of a sorts, with "TK," short for Telekinesis, the ability to move objects with your mind, just appearing, though it's very limited, mostly to moving objects like pencils and quarters. [Gallery: Time Travel in "Looper"]

The story being marketed, featuring Bruce Willis as an aging hitman who is sent back in time to be killed by his younger self, Joseph Gordon Levitt, is present and important, but is really only half the story (and in fact, depending on how deep you look, maybe only a third of it). While the chase and ongoing struggle between the two actors playing the same role is fun and helps to keep the forward momentum, the deeper themes of selfishness, sacrifice, choice, and potential for good and evil are what will linger in your mind after seeing the film. This movie will make you think, this movie will make you feel, and while at times those feelings will be painful, you'll love it all the more when all is said and done.

The ensemble performance is incredible. Willis and Levitt play off one another like they've been doing it for years, supporting roles played by actors big and small make their mark on the film and help the pair stand out, as well. The big surprise may be Emily Blunt, who undergoes a physical and emotional transformation akin to Linda Hamilton's from Terminator to Terminator 2, but all within one film. She's strong, fierce, and loyal, and she pops off the screen in a way that few actors can.

Levitt did a little transforming himself, having clearly studied Willis's suble movements, his facial ticks and expressions, and even his general posture and walking style, and adopted them all as his own. You'll believe the two are the same man a few decades apart easily, and there are specific moments where you'll simply swear a young Bruce Willis is on the screen during Levitt's scenes.

With a stellar cast and a deep and layered story, all signs point to a solid moviegoing experience. It's lucky, then, that Writer/Director Rian Johnson took those things and brought it all together. This story, with its mind-bending twists and turns and its heavy, sad undertones, could weigh itself down. Luckily, the pacing never struggles, the mood bends but doesn't break, and there's just enough hope to allow a glimmer of a smile by the end of the film.

This movie is difficult to discuss without spoiling the big twists, as they are really what makes it soar. Suffice to say, this is a film that almost requires multiple viewings — not because it doesn't make sense or leave an impact the first time, instead precisely because of the impact it leaves. Can this film put Rian Johnson's name into the same breath as some of the all-time scifi greats? Yes, and I can't wait to see it again and again (and what he does next).
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Time travel capabilities fall into the Mob's hands in the upcoming thriller. Includes MIT professor Max Tegmark and senior SETI astronomer Seth Shostak talking about the feasibility of time travel.
http://www.livescience.com/23487-looper ... video.html
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Wow! That's a ot to live up to, but I might check it out now.

Most of the sci-fi of late has been such tosh i'd kind of stopped bothering.
 
It's got Bruce in it, so it's likely to be good.
 
We just saw it today.
I went in expecting it to be action-heavy, and maybe not much else, from the previews I saw.
There is a big chunk of plot that's not even hinted at in the reviews. This is a better movie than how they've been marketing it. And it delivers on the promised action.
 
BlackRiverFalls said:
Like Surrogates? :lol:

I have a lot of time for Bruce but that one was a duffer.
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Oh yeah - sorry. I forgot that one.
 
Mythopoeika said:
BlackRiverFalls said:
Like Surrogates? :lol:

I have a lot of time for Bruce but that one was a duffer.
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Oh yeah - sorry. I forgot that one.
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Don't laugh, but I watched that one on TV the other day, and I didn't think it half as bad as people had said. Still not a third as good as it could have been, but a reasonably pleasant 85 minutes.

If I'm that easily pleased, therefore, Looper should render me speechless when I finally see it! Seriously, I've heard barely a harsh word spoken about it, so I will check it out ASAP.
 
Excellent! It lived up to the hype. Truly a great SF film. The writer actually understood time travel and potential paradoxes. How did Hollywood allow it to be made without ruining it?
 
|I've just seen it - it's a much cleverer movie than it's being marketed as. However, as in most time-travel movies they cheated slightly with paradoxes. Excellent SF thriller, however.

I liked the ways young and old Joe played off each other and you could believe that they were the same person 30 years apart (tiny point, missed the earlobes though).


BTW; I saw a while back, not the greatest SF movie every, but reasonably entertaining if you accepted the inherent daftness of the concept.
 
Timble - sorry to be dense. Was that last sentence still about Looper, or referring to something else? It's just that I have a fondness for films that fit the category of
not the greatest SF movie ever, but reasonably entertaining if you accepted the inherent daftness of the concept
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and would hate to miss out on another one!
 
Went to see it tonight at local (Burton on Trent) cinema. I always approach SF films with dread these days as they tend to be either (a) a shoot-em-up with outlandish weapons (b) an art house movie that probably has something to say but is unfortunately incomprehensible (c) a horror film in disguise. Looper was none of these and in my opinion one of the best true SF movies in a long time, Excellent!!
 
I just watched Looper and have to say that I almost fell asleep... didn;t find either incarnation of the main character particularly interesting or someone I was that bothered about what happened to, time travel slant was ridiculous in places (slowly disappearing man was gross but otherwise silly).

Not so sure what people saw in this one.
 
I saw "Looper" a couple of months ago; found it incomprehensible from start to finish, and not engaging my attention, or with the slightest trace of enjoyableness. I rarely like films which are sci-fi-ish in any way or shape (was totally bemused and unimpressed by "2001"); the fault is likely with me, rather than with whichever film. Was not expecting "Looper" to be a positive experience; but once in a great while, a film in this genre surprises me in that I find I take pleasure in it.
 
Well at least it wasn't as tedious as the dreadful 'Life of Pi' which i endured tonight.
 
I watched, Timecop, again, a couple of days ago. A thoroughly enjoyable Jean Claude van Damme, actioner. One of his best. A time travel paradox movie with plot holes you could drive a bus through, never mind the Time cops' rocket sled. If, Looper, is a similar sort of movie, it might be fun to watch.
 
Maybe it didn;t help that i've been watching Stein's Gate recently, which is an anime that at least has a consistent time travel paradigm and has CERN as the bad guys and John Titor (who is really a girl) on the mad scientist side.

Looper just seemed to pull out all the bad cliches time travel stories use.
 
OneWingedBird said:
Maybe it didn;t help that i've been watching Stein's Gate recently, which is an anime that at least has a consistent time travel paradigm and has CERN as the bad guys and John Titor (who is really a girl) on the mad scientist side.
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Dear God -- and I thought "Looper" was confusing. Maybe I should just give up trying, with this kind of stuff.
 
I've just seen it - it's a much cleverer movie than it's being marketed as.
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Interesting - I thought the opposite was true in that it wasn't half as clever as it thought it was.
It was constantly ignoring the rules it set up for itself in order to get the plot moving in the direction they wanted it to.
JGL was very good though - the boy's going to be a star, no doubt.
 
I just saw it earlier today. I quite liked it, and thought it was a fairly original, new take on the time travel genre. Bruce, as ever, delivered.
 
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