Extremely uneven; much to recommend, much to shake one's head over

Rating: 7/10 (30 September 2012)

Since I've already warned about spoilers, I might as well start with this: I didn't care for the ending. Cid has already caused the deaths of two people and seems to be filled with dangerous anger–could he not, still, become the Rainmaker? We've already seen Old Joe kill one child, and he was clearly distraught over doing it–he's not an indiscriminate slaughterer–so the reasoning behind Young Joe's suicide iswhat, exactly? Why not just kill Old Joe and stay with Sara and Cid, keeping an eye on him to make sure he doesn't go bad? The people who were after him are all dead–so why not live a happy life with Sara? The ending really, as far as I'm concerned, can't stand up to scrutiny.
My other gripes with the film were less significant, but still worth noting. Emily Blunt isn't bad, butwho thought casting her as a Kansas housewife was a good idea? Sara isn't a terribly well written character either–her deflated toughness early on is pretty hoary–but the casting of Blunt just seems random.
Rian Johnson's writing here and there gets really heavy-handed, and worse, he makes surprisingly little use of the whole time-travel premise. The RT consensus calls it "uncommonly smart"compared to what, exactly? There's some cleverness at work here, yes, but UNCOMMONLY smart? I don't see it.
Finally, Paul Dano. Are we supposed to like his character? He's ridiculously annoying, hammy, and all-around tiresome. It's hard to believe he would have been an especially viable hit-man to begin with, but that's irrelevant; what IS relevant is the question of how much sympathy we're meant to feel for him. I felt none, although the scene where is older self is being slowly dismembered while trying to reach his torturers is one of the best in the film.
With all that out of the way, what did I LIKE about the film? Joseph Gordon-Levitt was good, Bruce Willis was good (although his presence just underscores the superiority of 12 Monkeys, a very similar film), Jeff Daniels was fun to seethe hedonistic montage early on was excellent, Joe's 30 years in Shanghai was a compelling bit of montage as well, the action scenes were generally quite well done (including Old Joe's rampage at the gang's HQ), and the scene between the two Joes in the diner was very good indeed–in fact, the film needed more interaction between Gordon-Levitt and Willis, as that could've been the backbone of a great film, and not just one element of a very uneven one.