Excellent: 9.5

Rating: 9/10 (27 July 2019)

Too often now, science fiction means a futuristic setting populated by millions of computer-generated pixels, with storytelling taking second fiddle to visuals. Rian Johnson, however, knows how to tell a story, and this shows in every second of his newest flick, Looper, a smart, time-traveling action film that embraces the inherent impossibilities of time travel and uses them to tell a surprisingly compelling tale This film is something else. Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars as Joe, a hit man for the 2070s mob who kills his victims by ambushing them after they travel backwards thirty years in time to 2044. Of course, this all changes when his future self (Bruce Willis) arrives from the future, looking for the infant version of a future tyrant called the Rainmaker. More than this, I will not reveal, as the way the story and dialogue unfold deserve to be left unspoiled for any potential viewer. A very cool dilemma, though, is explored in the event in the film of "closing the loop." If Old Joe came back from the future, doesn't that mean that he's already experienced these events? Never mind. As he says in a restaurant, "I don't want to talk about time travel. We'd be here for hours drawing diagrams with straws." And that they would. But somehow, the screenplay almost manages to avoid the idea of time paradoxes altogether, but remains complex enough to allow viewers to figure out the story as it goes along. Very few films can keep you guessing the whole way through, but Looper pulls it off effortlessly. Unfortunately, there's really not too much to say about this film without going into the story, but it is filled with colorful characters, high-octane action, and one of the smartest sci-fi scripts ever written. If you're a fan of smart science fiction, you owe it to yourself to see this film. There's really not much like it.