“Looper” is one of those films that you’re not sure that you’re going to like, because of the film’s complex nature. Still, I decided to see it anyway considering that it has Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis in it.
The film is takes place in the future, where time travel has been invented and has also been outlawed. The only way that the mob can get rid of someone is to send them to the past, where the looper kills them. For Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), he is getting rich by getting killing his targets from the future. Life has been going good for him, until the mob decides to close his loop. They send Joe’s future self (Bruce Willis) for assassination. But Joe’s future self has other plans, as he escapes from his past self to change his future. Now, Joe must find his future self before either he or the mob kills him first.
Film Review:
One of the reasons that the film works so well was Rian Johnson’s direction. He does a very good job keeping the tone of the film very dark and on edge. That’s what helped make the film entertaining. Johnson is able to do that, by directing the action sequences and making sure that the twists keep you guessing to see how the film ends. It really helped make this a very dark and entertaining sci-fi film. The acting here was very good. He focuses on getting his performances to fit with the film’s tone. It helped make the action interesting and keeps you interested.
Speaking of the performances in the film, I thought the performances made the film even better. Joseph Gordon-Levitt really does a very good job, as the film’s lead. I remember seeing his other most recent release “Premium Rush” before this film and thinking that I was going to have mixed feeling about his performance in “Looper”. My thoughts proved to be wrong, as he is much better in this film than in “Premium Rush”. He performs the character better and he also make the character more interesting and engaging. The supporting performances were also good, as I truly liked Bruce Willis and Emily Blunt here. Having them there also helped make the performance aspects work so well.
The screenplay written by Rian Johnson was also very good. He doesn’t make many things complicated, as this could’ve been a film where you could’ve gotten lost with all the time travel stuff. You don’t have that here, as everything feels simplified and you’re not wondering or feeling confused. The other thing that I also liked about the screenplay was the character development. Johnson did a very good job making his character very dark with his out of control lifestyle in the beginning of the film then completely change the character as the film goes on. It allows the main character to be more than a one-dimension character and makes the character interesting. If this was a one-dimensional character, then a lot of things would have went wrong with the story. Thankfully that didn’t happen, as I liked the main character here.
Blu-Ray Extras:
The extras start off with the film’s commentary track with writer/director Rian Johnson and two of the film’s stars Joseph Gordon-Levvit and Emily Blunt. I enjoyed this commentary track a lot. I liked, the way that they go into the film’s production. They provide very interesting stories from the set to how some of the film’s scenes were filmed. It’s worth a listen, if you’re a fan of this film.
After the commentary track, it’s the disc’s making of featurette “The Future from the Beginning”. Not a bad start to the featurettes. The cast and crew talk about the film, its characters and the film’s production.
The next featurette is “Scoring Looper”. This featurette is divided into three chapters; Field Recordings, Percussion and Melodic Instruments. It was an interesting featurette, where the film’s composer Nathan Johnson talked about the various things and instruments that he used when creating the film’s score. Overall, this was a very interesting featurette.
The featurettes wrap up with “The Science of Time Travel”. The featurette goes into the subject of time travel. It goes into some of the science and theories about it while talking about its use in the film.
The disc wraps up an animated trailer of the film and 22 deleted scenes with commentary.
Final Summary:
“Looper” is a very well executed sci-fi thriller that has a very good screenplay and very good performances from its main cast. This truly would’ve been on my best of 2012 list, if I saw it last year.
Film Review Rating: Five Stars
Blu-Ray Extras: Four Stars
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