You shouldn't need my opinion to know this but...

Rating: 8/10 (7 December 2013)

Watch this movie before writing it off as good or bad.
That should be rule number one for any cinema-goer. No matter how much you like this or that critic, watching a movie to create your own opinion should always take priority.
With THAT out of the way, here's what I think of Looper.
The movie starts off grim and very gritty, with presenting a cold- hearted character played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. We're introduced to an interesting lifestyle of crime, sex, drugs and alcohol. Obviously, if you've seen this movie's guidelines, you'll know things eventually go belly-up for Joe, who winds up having to kill his own future self. Of course, the assassination goes awry, Old Joe beats present Joe to the ball and runs away.
The rest is a series of well filmed action sequences, flash backs, character development and theories on time travelling. In all actuality, one may claim to know what time travel is and how it works, but this is all very much speculative. If you watch Science-Fiction expecting accurate scientific statements, read a book. Looper avoids geek-talk about time travel and that sticks well to its characters. A mob boss would not sit down with one of his employees to theorize about how time travel works, nor would future Joe waste very precious time explaining, as he says, with little sticks how time travel is accomplished.
These people are on a short time line and actively hunted down for very vaguely definable crimes. I absolutely loved how the lines became blurry between present Joe and Old Joe. Adding in the mix an apocalyptic child, whose only hope to redemption is just controlling his temper, with a most interesting Emily Blunt as a "mother"... You'll be kept up until the very end.
Now, in retrospect, my one main gripe with this movie is the completely overshadowed "TKs" plot point. It's an interesting twist, but aside from marking people as targets, it doesn't seem to do anyone ANY good! You'd be hard-pressed to find evidence about how humanity just suddenly popped a telekinetic code in its DNA. So all in all, it's just one extra trigger to keep the movie going. I'm not so sure I dislike it all that much. The alternative would have been to use the tired old cliché of "Angry young kid who suffered from experiments and now wants vengeance".
Conclusion!
Loopers: Not the movie of the century, definitely original, definitely worth a watch. Don't fall in the trap of trying to figure out time travel. Modern science hasn't found a way to make it work, neither will you. Just watch the movie, escape life for an hour or two and keep quiet.