Movie Reviews: Looper

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This week, Papa Kenn reviews the latest sci-fi spectacular: LOOPER!

“Looper”
Director: Rian Johnson
Writers: Rian Johnson
Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt, Jeff Daniels, Paul Dano, Pierce Gagnon

Review Transcript:
Looper is a movie that is difficult to review in any depth without spoilers. Because of this, today’s review will be fairly short. Side note: the shortness of the review is in no way influenced by a severe lack of time or the fact that I’m traveling out of town.

Anyway!

Looper is a great movie! According to some it’s the best sci-fi movie of 2012, and that’s a hard point to argue. The acting is great, the tension is real, the action is heart-pounding and quick, and the logic is mind-bending yet simplistic.

Honestly one of the things I appreciate most about this movie is that the trailers reveal very little about the movie itself beyond the most basic elements of the story. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a “Looper” that kills people sent back in time, but fails to kill his future self played by Bruce Willis, which angers the other guy from Dumb & Dumber- I mean Jeff Daniels. Confused? Good.

Also, to anyone (including my wife) that questions the logic of sending people back in time to be killed: 1) You’re overthinking things. 2) It’s explained in the movie! Kinda…mostly. Shut up.

Of all the great movies that Looper is being compared to, the most common is Inception (for reasons beyond Joseph Gordon-Levitt starring in that one as well). In many ways that I unfortunately can’t go into, this is an accurate comparison. While Inception is a movie that is so complex that it leaves everyone with a different idea of how it ended, Looper is more simple in its complexity. Throughout most of the movie, I took certain plot points to mean something deeper and more complex than they actually were. If you haven’t seen Looper yet, that likely makes absolutely no sense, but I’m sure those that have seen it get what I’m saying.

The only flaw I can find in Looper is that the 2nd act has moments that are mind-numbingly slow. The acting quality never lets up, but the scenes are so slow compared to the rest of the movie that they feel unnecessary. In the grand scheme of things however, even these moments don’t take away from what is otherwise an overall excellent film.

There’s little more that I can say except: see this movie. It’s rated R, so of course take that into account, but you will be hard pressed to find a better overall film this year. Its flaws are minor, and the entertainment value rarely falls short. In truth, this may be the best example of seeing a movie tell a story properly that has been seen all year.

I give Looper: 10/10.

I’m Papa Kenn, and I made it through the whole review without saying this movie threw me for a loop!

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