It's Terminator revisited in this assassination-romance flick

Rating: 5/10 (30 September 2012)

TIME travel is a popular theme in movies as it allows directors to postulate the idea of humans travelling across time either to change the past (Terminator, 1984) or to realise that you can't change the past (Twelve Monkeys, 1995).
In 'Terminator', John Connor sends a rebel soldier back in time to save his yet-to-conceive mother from a cyborg attack. The mother conceives a baby with the soldier and the baby grows up to be John Connor. Viewers must accept the fact that the foetus continues to live even after the soldier dies.
In 'Twelve Monkeys', in a bleak future caused by a virus attack, a man (Bruce Willis) is sent back in time to find out what caused the attack. The future society accepts that it can't change the past; it just wants to finds out what caused the present situation. In this movie, the adult Willis meets his child self. He also dies in the past, but his child self lives.
The past comes alive once again in writer-director Rian Johnson's Looper, about a bunch of assassins who kill scumbag sent back in time.
Here's how it works. Villains 30 years into the future send back those they want killed. The loopers blast these baddies into oblivion, get rid of the bodies and pocket a sizable amount of silver for their deeds. The catch is, the villains must knock off these loopers in 30 years to "close the loop".
I found all of this rather confusing, and if most viewers are like me, they'll spend most of their time figuring out what's going on instead of enjoying the movie.
Young Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt in swept-back hair, a fake nose and darkened eyebrows) is immensely rich because of his unusual profession. He snorts drugs (eyedrops), drives around in his sports car, goes clubbing and enjoys the services of an escort, single mum Suzie (Piper Perabo)
The landscape of the future is pretty much similar to what you've seen in other movies, but there are more street people and shooting thieves is definitely allowed. In this case, Looper misses a chance to comment on the social discontent brewing in the streets. And if it didn't do so, then why show these scenes?
Young Joe moves to Shanghai, China, and becomes Old Joe (Willis), who marries Summer Qing (Qing Xu). There's not much talk between them, and I presume she's in the movie to open doors into China's huge market.
Old Joe thinks he's reached nirvana, but his 30-year tenure is up and he must now face his own extinction. He blames a new villain called the Rainmaker for breaking up his idyllic lifestyle.
He escapes his fate and travels back in time, narrowly escaping being killed by Young Joe.
Old Joe tells him that they should find and kill the young Rainmaker, who just happens to be in the county they're in.
All this talk and lack of a female presence means its time to introduce the lovely Sara (Emily Blunt), a farmer whose son Cid (Pierce Gagnon) is 10 and is one of three suspects scheduled for termination by the Joes.
It's interesting to note that an assault on Young Joe is felt by Old Joe, which is really cool, but not until you realise that this first happened in Frequency (2000).
In the meantime, syndicate boss Abe (Jeff Daniels) is hot on their heels, so all this makes for a lively finale, if you have the patience to sit through this remake of Terminator.
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