Intelligently exhilarating.

Rating: 9/10 (29 September 2012)

I enjoy big, silly action flicks as much as the next bloke, but I enjoy big, intelligent action flicks even more. Rian Johnson's third effort behind the camera (after the superb Brick and the disappointing The Brother's Bloom) is a sublime mix of stylised violence, edge-of-seat tension and thought-provoking narrative. There are no easy answers to the questions raised by Johnson's time-travel saga – for example, would you kill a small child if you knew he grew up to be a mass-murderer? – however these challenging themes never stop the film from being utterly exhilarating from start to finish. Whether it's the startling opening scene, the alternate path montage or the heart-in-mouth finale, Looper barely misses a beat thanks to Johnson's brilliant pacing and measured use of various camera techniques, Nathan Johnson's engrossing score and the subtly employed CGI which reaches its zenith during the telekinetic climax. The actors are all on song too; Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt and Jeff Daniels are perfectly cast as a fugitive from the future, a strong-willed mother and a charismatic mob boss respectively, but this is undoubtedly Joseph Gordon-Levitt's show. Playing Willis' younger self, who incidentally is trying to kill his older self (confused yet?), JGL is phenomenal as the arrogant, conflicted protagonist who on the surface is an egotistical prick but over time displays a deeper emotional understanding of how the world works. Epic, compelling, invigorating, thrilling: Looper is this and much, much more.