This is a good movie, not a great movie

Rating: 7/10 (4 November 2012)

Luckily, I managed to get into the cinemas for Looper before the run ended. A month since it released, and it still seems to be going strong. That privilege is reserved not for the big movies, but the big movies. And, ever since it got onto the radar, Rian Johnson's thriller was always referred to as one of those big movies. So I finally got my tickets and took my seat, and prepared for the big movie.
By now, you've probably seen the movie and know what it's about. But if you don't, Looper is a time-travel thriller set in the not-so-distant future. In this present, hit men – known as loopers – assassinate men who have been transported back from the future by underworld gangsters. Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is one of those loopers, but everything starts to go wrong when his next hit is himself (Bruce Willis).
The plot is absolutely brilliant, it really is. Original, inventive, and provides so much scope for some amazing storytelling. Add to that a stellar cast, which also includes Jeff Daniels and Emma Blunt, and you've got a recipe for success. All the publicity about Looper seemed to suggest that this was going to be this generation's The Matrix.
So it really annoys me that I was so disappointed. I wanted to love this movie, I wanted to be blown away the way I was when I watched Inception for the first time. Perhaps it was my fault for placing too much faith in it but, whatever it was, the movie disappointed me.
I think that the movie just did not live up to the potential that amazing concept could offer. The idea of a man needing to kill his own future self is extremely exciting, but the novelty wore off very quickly. That's partly due to the fact that, like we see so often nowadays, Bruce Willis just wasn't that great. For the film to work, both Levitt and Willis needed to deliver, and the veteran messed up. As a result, I ended up not believing in what he was trying to do.
Levitt, on the other hand, is really good. He's fast becoming one of my favourite actors, and he gives another strong performance. A lot was made about his prosthetic face, and rightfully so. His whole complexion is different and, while he doesn't really look like Bruce Willis, he does a decent job of acting like him. Emma Blunt, too, is excellent, and is probably the real emotional heart of the film (even more so than the two men).
But it's probably her character that antagonised me the most. She's an integral part of the second half of the movie, where the entire plot is turned on its head. It should have been a brilliant twist; instead, I was left scratching my head a little and wondering what happened to my time travel thriller. The new plot twist plays out very predictably, and ends even more predictably.
There is still a lot to like about Looper; it's a great view on what our future could be like, and there are some brilliant performances from the supporting cast (Paul Dano and Garret Dillahunt come to mind). Action scenes, even some of the more emotional scenes, are good. This is still a good movie, don't get me wrong. What disappoints me is that the film takes too many twists and turns, with the badly-executed twists cancelling out the better ones; leaving you with a somewhat anticlimactic end.
Rian Johnson is still a director to pay attention to, and Looper is still a watchable movie. Maybe the hype killed it for me. Maybe if I watch it again in a year's time, my opinion will have changed. But for now, I write this as a disappointed film fan.