Actually one of the best sci-fi movies in recent years

Rating: 8/10 (8 August 2013)

For all of you nitpicking detractors of the time-travel flick Looper, listen to what director Rian Johnson has to say about it in the Blu-Ray audio commentary: "No time travel in any movie ever makes sense. It's complete balderdash, and it's just a matter of tricking an audience into believing it makes sense." Now let that sink in, and then continue reading this review.
Looper is set 60 years in the future, but most scenes happen only 30 years in the future - the future past, if you will. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Joe, a so-called looper, which means being a contract killer who dispatches people that are sent to him from a future mob. This job is abnormally lucrative and after only a few years in the business, Joe already has a huge stowage of silver pieces at home, and the only valid explanation for this is that in the future, inflation will have increased enormously. But you won't have much time to think about such odds and ends because the time-travelling requires a lot of attention. Especially once Joe encounters his older self on the mat his victims appear on. It is revealed via voice-over that this is a standard procedure and even has a professional term: closing the loop. Our weird protagonist doesn't have a problem with doing that and the only thing that stops him from doing so is that his older self is Bruce Willis who KOs him in a matter of seconds. Well, that first half-hour was awesome.
What then follows is Young Joe searching for Old Joe so he can kill him, while Old Joe searches for the man that is at fault for Old Joe being sent back in time and kill him. And I can gleefully give the all-clear that Looper doesn't turn into a stupid scavenger hunt from that point on. Crucially for that is the introduction of two new characters: Emily Blunt's southern mother of one, Sara, who makes her introduction by smoking a non-existent cigarette and shortly afterwards making the acquaintance of Young Joe on her lawn with a welcoming "I'll cut you the - rhymes with duck - in half!" and her son Cid. Tensions are soon reduced, and Young Joe stays with the two: on one hand to protect them from Old Joe who develops some hugely unpleasant intentions, and on the other hand because Emily Blunt is a MILF.
Writer/director Rian Johnson proves that you can create great movies even if your parents are dyslexic. His story is rational and plausible as long as you don't over-scrutinize it and/or browse the internet on rants about the logicality in the time-travel scenes and his directing is entertaining and a very good mixture of sci-fi, action, thriller, drama, and even comedy. And more importantly than anything else, he accomplished to get a really decent performance out of Bruce Willis!
Another big plus point for the movie is the sound, and with that I don't solely refer to Nathan Johnson's immensely fitting score. The balance between dialogues so low that you will have to strain your ears to understand them and boisterous action scenes that are prone to give you a minor heart attack is impressive even if you usually don't pay attention to sound in movies at all. While these two extremes may have you switch the TV volume up and down every minute and thus annoy you, you shouldn't overlook the fact that this is actually a pretty cool stylistic device. And not the only in the movie. The beautiful shots of coffee in Joe's favorite French diner or the inauspicious burning cigar in the scene in which Young Joe comes home after the first confrontation with his older self, for example. In general, the film is technically on a really high level and has great cinematography, editing, set design, and VFX.
With all my laudatory words for Looper, what is it then that prevents it from being a masterpiece? Sadly, all the flaws I found while watching it - two times, n.b. - occurred in the final 20 minutes. This last eighth really disappointed me and not even because of the controversial ending, which I actually loved, but because of some other things most critics don't seem to mention. The scenes I mean are - without spoiling anything! – an Expendables-esque shooting spree, the comical and illogical killing of a character shortly before the final showdown, two characters that aren't hurt at all when the fast driving car they're sitting abruptly somersaults, and one character that gets shot in the face and doesn't die. Things like that bother me and really took me out of the movie, however, the emotional and jaw-dropping final showdown makes up for that in my opinion, and leaves you on an affecting and thought-provoking note.
Résumé: Looper portrays time-travelling better than most movies and also includes some maybe unexpected emotional messages that make it more than just an entertaining sci-fi flick. Director Rian Johnson gives us just enough explanation to understand the time-travelling aspects and at some parts, re-thinking what happened later on is almost necessary. However, because of this, you don't get the feeling that information is being thrown at you to help you with comprehending. It has good acting even in little supporting roles, distances itself from typical Hollywood movies with sometimes long dialogue sequences but also several wordless shots, and has absolutely sightly visuals. It profits from the self- ironic approach of director Rian Johnson and its little flaws can be forgiven. Due to all of that, it becomes a movie that you are definitely going to remember and that you will do well in buying on DVD or Blu-Ray since watching it a second time and then fully grasping everything that's going on is just as much fun as the first time.