Not a professional.

Rating: 5/10 (7 October 2012)

I would be lying if I claimed to be a professional in the field of film reviews but this flick in particular gave me the green light. Here, I don't mention the positives of the flick since they have been rinsed and repeated throughout the world wide web. Nonetheless, below are some quick plot points that really bothered me in the movie Looper:
1. Joe 'drops' the ball.
In the beginning, Joe's monologue tells us that mobs or people cannot murder others because of some 'tracking' that takes place. I assume this pinpoints who the killer is? (Isn't explained but not a huge problem).
Fast forward to old Joe 30 years later and the mob kills someone. Joe's Asian wife. Even though old Joe takes care of the mob members, it can be surmised that they weren't the whole mob and were clearly henchmen. So was the mob leader caught? Where did they dump the body if it really was tracked? The list is ongoing.
2. Blue's Clueless.
Kid Blue had a lot of potential. Really. He reminded me of a loose cannon, a ticking time-bomb waiting to explode. You as an audience hopes that his recklessness and failures early on pays off later in the film where his anger moulds him into a fitting villain. You are not meant to like him.
However, you give up hope for this "Kid Blue" when he finally seems to have caged the lion (old Joe) but gets a fork put on his back-side and turned around flat on his face (not literally). So the audience's hope gets shunted and a question pops up: 'Why is he even there?' The answer is: because he is. He is just there for the hell of it. I certainly don't want to question the dual-wielding old Joe's marksmanship but why mow down everyone in the mob and let Kid Blue off with a mere scratch? Again, I have the answer (you might know it too). He is just there for the hell of it. To merely aid Joe in the next scene with the hover bike where Kid Blue gets to redeem his acts of mishap? Nope, to die. And he isn't the only useless antagonist of the film, Abe is another anomaly. It is mentioned that he's from the future. So what? That doesn't instantly give him bad ass points (it would have been interesting to see his back story in some fashion). We see him smash Kid Blue's hands with a tiny hammer. The sympathy you feel for Kid Blue clearly overshadows Abe's unnecessary, bully-ish and violent actions.
3. We are all dumb.
A director/writer's job in a film with a complex idea is to make us feel smarter and to give us a high after figuring out the complexities such as time paradoxes and such. But what we are served is a predictable and loathsome ending akin to 'this was all a dream'. Let me explain. The film builds up this mystery of what lil' Rainmaker's fate really is...
4. Heat vision? I-look-at-people-and-they-explode-vision.
Like most of the film, the concept of an innocent child being able to dismember any thing around him through absolute rage is appealing. But the method gets a thumbs down. The extreme close up shots of the lil' Rainmaker's googly eyed face while undergoing RAGE MODE simply couldn't be taken seriously (I personally would have had him cover his face).
Right after the scene where lil' Rainmaker decides involuntarily to pop the baddie's bubble, Joe makes a dash for him to end his life. And we support him 100% So he catches up to the child fairly easily, and sees him crouched and bloody faced and...decides not to kill him. That is not enough. Now, I'm not saying he should have killed the child, then you would truly be confused in terms of the protagonist/antagonist of the film. But this scene needed a flashback or a sudden realisation of Joe's earlier life that was foreshadowed; justifies as to why he cannot pull the trigger. It never was. So you're left scratching your head as to why his sudden vow for blood shifts into sympathetic confusion.
Again, this violent act confuses you as to who the villain really is.
The list really is ongoing.