Looper

After the opening twenty minutes, I was prepared for a futuristic variation on existential crime films along the lines of Le Samouraï. However, Rian Johnson directs with much less focus than the precise Melville. Thought the result doesn’t fall apart like The Brothers Bloom, the film still lacks a uniform style. Despite the absolutely serious and very impressive cutaways into the mechanised life of a hired assassin (though it somehow wasn’t clear to me why the targets aren’t sent back in time already dead), Looper also contains farcical black humour, a saccharine romance, brutal “Rambo” action and a bit of telekinesis for beginners (not to mention the very western-style final conflict on the street). Johnson switches not only between a lot of genres, but also between a lot of narrators. Though the narrative thus unfolds in an interesting way, it doesn’t ultimately lead to any surprising “convergence” into a unified point.  The use of multiple points of view essentially only confirms the truth of my favourite line from The Rules of the Game: “The awful thing about life is this: everyone has their reasons.” I’m afraid that the attempt to apply Bordwell’s forking-path model of narration to the film, placing in front of us two human minds influencing each other instead of two time planes, would lead us up a blind alley (though I would like to have this assumption refuted by a second viewing). More important than the time paradoxes for Johnson are the moral dilemmas with which the characters are confronted and which force us to constantly assess the situation from an emotional perspective. To whom does the future belong? Where does the line between a wasted and fulfilled life lead? What right do we have to make decisions for others? Here the non-Hollywood-style desperate fatefulness appears again, but repackaged in a more familiar, family-melodrama wrapper. I believe that if Johnson had stuck with a short runtime, as was the original plan, Looper would have been a great film about which geeks would tweet enthusiastically from the whole known internet world. As it stands, however, it is a very imaginative film that is more about sense than sensibility in conflict with its dominant sci-fi genre. 80% (08.10.2012)

With Looper, Rain Johnson was successful where Duncan Jones, with Source Code, and Andrew Niccol with, In Time, failed: making, on a low budget, an original and ambitious sci-fi movie that is also fun, smart and without major gaps of logic. Some people may not agree with the last observation (judging by the fairly numerous negative comments), but I believe Looper avoids those time travelling illogical paradoxes actually because it never explains exactly how time travel works in its universe. Source Code tries to explain it, but it doesn’t make much sense. Looper just waves its hand at that, saying that “it’s a complicated mess”, and doesn’t bother with explaining anything. I liked that. (Spoiler) But I hear those cries. If Willis, coming from the future, killed the kid’s mum, he would turn him into the dangerous villain that made Willis come back from the future, and that doesn’t make sense, because in the reality to which Willis returns, nothing like that happened. Yeah, yeah, I see the joy of those smartasses that finally found one gap in logic, and to show it off, they say that Looper is bullshit. But this film doesn’t work with such direct causality. The course of events in the climax, which result in the kid’s becoming a villain, is just one of many ways it could have happened. Different paths lead to the same outcome, many different paths lead to a probable outcome, a few different paths lead to an improbable outcome. And that’s the way Looper’s universe work, with “probability”, and it says so a couple of times, for instance, in the conversation in the diner. It’s still a bit of a mess, though, but it’s clear that, by not dealing with precise rules, the creators want to rely on something else, emotions. And I think that it works. (End of spoiler). So, that is it. In my opinion, Looper is not too far from being a truly acclaimed work. It’s original to a certain extent, fantastically made, well acted, smartly written and quite nasty towards its characters; uncompromising sci-fi. How many are there? (19.10.2012)

A great premise, an interesting execution. Looper might not be perfect and it has a whole lot of holes, but on the other hand, it tries to be unconventional, original and quite unusual – successfully so. After all, it can’t be easy to come up with a time travel story, so stasis will probably always have one or twoholes in it. On the other hand, Gordon-Levitt, Willis, Blunt and Daniels are making up for it perfectly. The rather slow and difficult start is then saved by the story, which is unpredictable in each passing minute, even though it makes you think that it isn’t. And that’s basically the nitty-gritty. Looper is an excellent idea and I must tip my hat off to anyone who decides to pursue these kinds of ideas. It’s actually a suicide mission in a sense that you’ll either fall in love with or you’ll just get pissed off. And I must say that I am leaning towards the prior. And when it comes to Bruce Willis? He’s a sweetheart, finally a movie where his character has a purpose, even if he doesn’t speak as much as I’d like. (28.06.2013)

Looper is a solidly thought out and well-shot and narrated "semi-indie" sci-fi film, which actually only takes a proven foundation and adds nothing new to it. So if you've seen "time travel" classics like Donnie Darko or 12 Monkeys (or The Butterfly Effect and others), it will become clear to you in the middle of the film that someone who returns from the future to fix the past tends to find out that his actions are part of the events he seeks to prevent. And unfortunately, the film goes along these tracks without any surprises and any significant excitement. After a fairly fresh introduction, an overly sleepy passage comes in the second half, which tries to motivate the rebirth of the hero's younger self. It makes sense, it doesn't offend, but at the same time it's not a big deal - rather a solidly written conversation film. Johnson works a lot with the characters, less with the world, which is more so sketched out (one must wonder why it's full of trailer trash, why people are so disgusting to each other and why there is a Zen oasis on the other half of the globe). Willis' storyline brings more adrenaline, but also shallow poses, awkward action and love clichés. The two selves meet in an excellent scene in a bistro, but then they each go their down their own storylines until the loop closes. Looper confirms the trend of "intelligent genre films with a lower budget" (Source Code, The Adjustment Bureau, Moon, In Time), which surpass the mainstream with their ambition and authorial vision. But they almost always lack an essential piece in order to achieve perfection. Most likely the piece that would significantly disrupt the well-known genre rules - it is best described by Willis, who, when mentioning a complex time paradox, says something to his younger self in the sense of: "We would have to sit here overnight and draw on piles of napkins. Just believe that things are this way." In the end, the trap is not unlike the one in which their more expensive friends hang. [75%] (08.10.2012)

A Terminator wannabe and the stupidest science fiction movie among the intelligent ones. Longwinded; after the opening few minutes completely without ideas; set in the future only for effect; it is shamefully superficial, it has no rules (neither for time travel nor the simple laws of action/reaction; for instance, the reason behind getting rid of people in such a complex, costly and uncertain way, which it later completely denies), but it has the most annoying child around... It wouldn't matter with a dumb popcorn action movie, but with a movie supposedly based on its "smartness", it makes you want to slap the filmmakers in the face. So there are precisely two pros; the opening quarter of an hour before the well of ideas dries out, and Willis’ dialog-less scene at the first meeting. Just disappointing. And yet it's the best non-action science fiction since Source Code. Which is darn sad. (11.10.2012)

The greatest strength of the rough futuristic junkyard is in the confident echo it leaves behind. Even long after leaving the cinema, it runs through my mind, I think about the individual plot lines, and my joy is mainly spoiled by the fact that the longer I contemplate, the more logical inconsistencies and paradoxes come back to me. Thanks to the perfect casting with the unwavering Willis at the forefront, however, it is a joy to watch this genre mix. The sympathetically uncompromising form makes it easier to overlook the narrative errors. 70% and rounding up for Rian Johnson's unquestionable courage. (24.10.2012)

In prehistoric times, when I was a boy reading Anderson's "Annals of the Time Patrol," I wondered how difficult it is to write (or shoot) sci-fi with time travel themes and not fall into the trap of a time paradox that has the ability to turn the story into an absurd farce. However, the problem of a time paradox is not what makes Looper unbearable in my eyes. Johnson's film is a typical summer blockbuster, which doesn't worry about illogical slip-ups in the script or rushed and bizarre relationship building. It offers potentially interesting themes, but it processes them or barely touches on them in a superficial way. The directing is routine and so is Bruce Willis' performance, which functions as a worn-out template for action heroes. Twelve Monkeys once proved that it is possible to create a smart, cultivated, and entertaining genre film about such a difficult-to-grasp phenomenon as time travel. In comparison to Gilliam's film, Looper is quite a bit worse. Overall impression: 40%. (05.02.2022)

At last a proper sci-fi. The nutritious story wrings everything it can from the topic of time travel. Rian Johnson first sketches the basic premise, then later enriching it with other added value and manages not to lose his way. Bruce is on best form (in terms of action and acting) and Joe just confirms his place as one of today’s best young actors, even under a thick layer of makeup. And moreover we have the incredibly well-cast kid who is a pest, a bit of a psycho, but still you find yourself rooting for him at least a little. The low budget turned the year 2044 into a horrible urban cesspit or an empty field in Kansas. This gives the picture the proper atmosphere where everything is more or less... gray. Anyone who compares this with Terminator was just stupidly concentrating on Willis’s storyline, while this movie isn’t really about him and don’t think you’ll get 12 Monkeys here, Looper has a long way to go to get to that. In any case, I want to watch this again soon. (11.10.2012)

Complicated, narratively muddled, and considerably unpolished. The director didn't even understand the basic thing that if you have a low-budget sci-fi film, you can't afford panoramic shots or city and traffic scenes, because if in 2044 you see a Toyota Yaris driving on the road, that's probably not entirely right. Only the smaller role of Emily Blunt and the excellently stylized Joseph Gordon-Levitt are good, he perfectly captures not only the appearance of a young Bruce Willis, but also his facial expressions and delivers great looks and lines precisely in his younger style, and it works great. Not a timeless film for sure, not very high-quality either, rather unusual, perhaps, but that's not enough. (20.01.2013)

Bruce Willis is able to time travel much better that this (hello 12 Monkeys). Looper is another one of those new sci-fi films (Moon, Source Code, In Time...) where it's nice to see that they can get by without a huge budget and that they can raise the hopes of genre lovers that they'll be original and fresh... But that's the end of it. In this case I liked the initial idea, the technical execution and both actors (Joseph Gordon-Levitt handled the role of Bruce Willis quite well, he wasn't even very ridiculous), but the rest wasn't worth much. Continually stupid and illogical, the clichéd passage on the farm makes me want to kill someone, and worst of all was the ending, in which - SPOILER - the hero died, but his inner voice kept on talking. (25.02.2013)

The idea is certainly original, but for my taste it leaves more question marks than it should. I accept the premise of cleaners being sent by their employer from the future at a precisely agreed time and place for summary executions, but isn't that a time loop, or whatever you want to call it? After all, the victim will grow up again in the aforementioned future and will have to be put away again, won't he? But back to the film. It’s shot in a really interesting and tasteful manner, and it would be a shame if some logical oversights were to sink it. Levitt handles the lead role with complete ease, and there's no need to talk about daddy Willis – every time he appears in front of the camera, the film immediately has more juice – but I missed some more distinct villains. Daniels is fine with his beard, but he’s given too little space and actually disappears off-screen. On the other hand, the plot with the little boy who came to be removed from the future by an angry guy (no, it's not Arnie) was intriguing. Very decent sci-fi, although the idea could have been handled in a better way. 70% (20.01.2013)

I enjoy time travel, which any sci-fi enthusiast should, but most of the time I find that I dislike the approach where authors simplify individual causes and it ends up just being a movie that uses this element to be interesting, but it is not well thought out. This does not apply to the movie "Looper". Causality exists here, and even though it is used for the needs of the film, it is still all well thought out to make sense as a whole and also to boast a great twist at the end. It is truly good and exactly what good sci-fi films of today, and not only today, are about. The surprise of the film is Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who I have known for a while now, that he won't be a bad actor and that he has already left his television past behind, but what he showcases in the movie "Looper" is truly excellent. He is serious here, something that he lacks in some roles. For comparison, I can mention the film "Premium Rush", which I will describe a bit later. He plays a classic character there, something like Shia LaBeouf in the film "Disturbia". Simply a guy who gets into problems he didn't ask for. Here, he plays a man who also has problems he didn't ask for, but he plays it much more maturely. He also has great partners in Bruce Willis and Emily Blunt. Together, they became the stars of the film that appealed to me and made me think that something is happening in the sci-fi genre. And it is something good. Duncan Jones, with his films "Moon" and "Source Code", showed that sci-fi can still be cleverly created. Rian Johnson follows in his footsteps and I look forward to more pieces that these two, or maybe someone else, will prepare for us. More: http://www.filmovy-denik.cz/2013/01/little-ashes-nezapomen-na-me-butter.html (05.03.2013)