Original, exciting, and with a very neat ending, Looper blends Johnson's artistic craft with a tense sci-fi thriller

Rating: 7/10 (25 November 2019)

Looper feels like Rian Johnson's magic trick: if you go hunting for them, you can definitely find flaws, but as you watch it you see exactly the brilliant vision Johnson had for the movie. The premise is phenomenal, blending future dystopia, crime thrills, and time travel in a neat and specific setting. Rather than making time travel ubiquitous or limiting it to just one person, we see how it applies to this specific risky group of crime employees. The vision of the future is very well done but also is presented naturally and not overemphasized. There's some really cool technology, like the nanotech making it hard to kill people, and the cool digital devices and telepathy, but also desolation and poverty. The movie really thrives as we get deeper into the premise, seeing how the life of a looper works and watching the plot of the crime organization unfold. Many moral questions are raised about self-preservation or sacrifice, as well as philosophical implications of time travel and these loops. The performances are great, but the characters feel more like representations of random pawns in this complex game than fully fleshed out humans. The ending is great and brings everything back together - the implications of the loop are clear, the decision of self-sacrifice for the hope that someone can be happy and break a cycle, and the ties that bind people are all laid bare in the climax. This is definitely one that will require deeper thought and could move in its rating, as I absolutely love the premise and direction of the movie, but also see that there may be some flaws in the characters and plot. I'm prone to strongly appreciating a bold, original high concept sci-fi project with great direction, but am not sure if that storytelling and intelligent development of the premise is all there needs to be. Certainly recommend it, and am absolutely stoked for Knives Out later this week.