Looper (Johnson, 2012)

[siowafc]

Yeah, the kid subplot is just...weird.

I mean, on its own merits, its an interesting angle, but it just seems like such an obscure way to approach the core concept of the film.

[BBKing44]

he seemed like the kid from The Omen, like the Antichrist or something.

I remember thinking the same thing. I tried not to, but I couldn't help but laugh during those scenes where he dawned his "angry face" and started freaking out on everyone.

[dyedred19]

I thought this was fucking incredible.

Sure, it largely aims to just be a really cool movie (and it succeeds tremendously), but damn if this didn't make me appreciate it on entirely different levels than that. I was utterly transfixed with most of it and I happened to love the third act. I thought the child actor (I'm too tired and lazy to look up his name) was totally amazing. I was in awe.

Looper made me remember why I love the movies so much.

[Aurelius]

Outside of the core of the premise being really strange (we can invent time travel, but we can't invent a good way to dispose of bodies?), this was pretty good. It dragged a bit with JGL and Blunt (who I loved) on the farm, and the sex scene was plain stupid, but the final 15 minutes were good fun. I don't get Ali's criticism: the film doesn't seem to imply (to me, at least) that the kid doesn't grow up to be The Rainmaker, just that he doesn't become him like because of what happens in the original timeline.

Is there only one farm in Kansas? It seems like in every film set there, I always see the same farm.

[Kargo]

Looper has one of the most disappointing third act let down i have ever seen. In the first half, setting works pretty well and film intelligently creates its world and rules. After Joe meets her oldself, the story gets even more exciting and the main conflict makes you feel something really strong is coming. But through the end you also expect something "intelligent" again but it crashes and burns in the world of cliches and it becomes a mesiah story who saves the world from evil. The film implies love of a mother will make the evil good and Joe sacrifices himself for a better future Come the fuck on, it is probably the most uninteresting ending for this kind of an exciting premise. I haven't even had fun in the second half.

also relationship between old Joe and young Joe is like a father-son relationship. Joe doesn't like his young self and judges his life which was filled with drugs and fun. In the end he saves holy mother love and child, even there's fucking LIGHT in the background in the last shot. The immoral becomes a moral person and do the right thing in the end. So predictable, so lame, so disappointing

I didn't read the film's ending like that.It was not about ''a mother's love'' or ''the immoral person becoming moral''.The theme of the film was unselfishness,selflessness,whatever you want to call it.It's established that Emily Blunt character left her son because she didn't want to take care of him,it's established early in the film that Bruce/JLG doesn't care for anyone but himself,he betrayed his best friend for money,even later in life,his own happiness is the reason why he starts killing everyone.Not to save the woman for her sake but for his,because she saved him.The end was done marvelously because both characters broke the cycle of selfishness and put another person's life in front of themselves,in this case the little kid.By virtue of those acts,they not only changed their futures but saved a lot of people in the future as well,seeing how much power the kid had and the way he would've turned if the events weren't changed.

An excellent film filled with complex,three-dimensional characters and a very interesting take on the time travel conundrum.

[DameMelissaLeo]

Dame Leo says,

I just watched this after it won NBR screenplay.

Tis a masterpiece!!! Mademoiselle Blunt should fire her publicist because she should be the main threat to La Hathaway not that drabby Dowd woman!

[Anthony_X]

Emily Blunt was sensational, It's such a shame that nobody is recognizing her.

I'm gonna go crazy with FYC ads for her for the INOCA'S.

[faina]

I suspect this film will be popping up a lot during this season. It definitely deserves it.

[DirkDiggler]

[haqyunus]

Well I didn't understand one thing (and I am sure I must have missed it): The retroactive assassinations and the 'closing-the-loop' concept was in existence even before the arrival of The Rainmaker. So just stopping the Rainmaker would not change the future in regards to the illegal killings and the crime syndicates. So it was essentially just getting rid of the partial problem. As for Blunt (whom I like a lot) was very meh. For starters, her poor southern accent was quite distracting. Overall, it is a good film, given the genre (not as good as Brick though.)

[Vincent Blanchett]

I thought Blunt's weirdass accent was really distracting as well. But in terms of emotions and characterisation, she was really terrific. Her pleading with JGL after her son's first kinetic blast killing one of the mafia henchmen really struck a chord with me.

[Aurelius]

This is one of the perks of not being American: accents don't bother me one bit, because I can't tell them apart anyway.

[Jali]

This is one of the perks of not being American: accents don't bother me one bit, because I can't tell them apart anyway.

I have the same problem.

[Vincent Blanchett]

I'm not American either. But I supposed staying in US for half a year helps lol.

[haqyunus]

I'm not American either. But I supposed staying in US for half a year helps lol.

It can happen the other way as well. I am still haunted by Julia Roberts as a British maid in Mary Reilly.

[McTeague]

I didn’t expect this to be… like this. Never saw Brothers Bloom, but Brick was oh so stylish and glossy and OMG visuals… and here you have a rather tough, dry approach that would make Howard Hawks proud in the narrative concision of the first half, plus shades of the toughest noir “B” films of the 40’s.

Then it’s a pity that the second half seems to be entirely different, with a languorous tempo, lots of stylizations (blue lens flares galore! Slo-mo!) and focus set on the emotional shifts much more than in the crude facts the first half was all about.

Each half is good on its own, but I don’t think the shift between the too is handled in an entirely successful way. And I liked the second half a bit less.

But, this is a minor quibble in an otherwise solid, great genre piece that offers an original take in classic sci-fi themes. Perhaps because it wants to tackle many themes it may seem that it simplifies some of them a tad too much (like, say, the protagonist’s redemption angle), but I prefer to say it leaves some themes merely suggested so to be able to have a broader scope. In other words, the potential insight we loose by having one topic slightly simplified is compensated by the overall complexity we get on how each topic relates to other, bigger topics (the redemption of a single man may have implications in a broader social landscape).

I certainly want to watch it again and savour the details that add this complexity now that I’ve seen the bigger picture.

Also, lens flares aside, OMG that use of the wide screen.

It’s also funny how the first half feels Hawks-esque, while the second half pays such clear tributes to The Fury and Brian De Palma, which may be the polar opposite of what Hawks would do.