"Disney's The Kid" Part 2

Rating: 8/10 (2 October 2012)

If you could go back in time and kill baby Hitler, would you? Like "The Terminator" with a touch of "Firestarter", "Looper" is the newest attempt at creating the next revolutionary Sci-Fi film (because everybody wants to make the next "Blade Runner"). Written and directed by Rian Johnson, the writer/director of the under-appreciated "Brick", and starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis and Emily Blunt, "Looper" tells the story of a dystopian year 2044, where 10 percent of the population has developed laughable "super powers" that don't seem to go beyond levitating quarters and time travel has not yet been invented. But in thirty year's time (in an even more flawed future) time travel will have been invented and quickly outlawed, only to be used by mobsters and the very rich, to send people back to 2044 that they want killed (because in the more distant future it is nearly impossible to get rid of a dead body) and that's where Loopers come in. A Looper is a hired gun of sorts from 2044, who is paid a substantial amount of money (silver) to kill those who are sent back in time by the mob and said very rich. Joe (Levitt) is one of these Loopers. One day he hears a rumor about a man called The Rainmaker, who, from thirty years in the future, is attempting to rid the world of Loopers by sending each Looper's future self back in time for the Looper to in turn, kill. OK, I'll stop here only because I have undoubtedly confused you all by this point, even though there is so much more to this story I could get into, such as the aspect of futuristic drug use, important terminology such as "closing your loop" and how much makeup one would have to apply if their future self came back in time and looked like Bruce Willis.
Levitt's notable transformation: The fact that Levitt and Willis' face look nothing alike, even with a heavy coat of makeup and prosthetics, isn't as distracting (or intriguing) as one would think. In fact, most audiences will become so wrapped up by the story, that they will be inclined to simply ignore any visual flaws this movie has to offer. And aside from the much anticipated makeup aspect of "Looper", the acting from the two male leads isn't all that memorable. In fact, Emily Blunt and the young boy who plays her son (Pierce Gagnon) practically steal the show. But even more interesting than Levitt and Willis' overshadowed performances, is the tone of "Looper" throughout. At times playing for laughs and at others playing more for extreme violence, Johnson seems to be in control of most of his story. Issues only arise when the tone of this film is drastically thrown off on two separate occasions. The first major tonal disruption comes during a crucial plot point (aka when the goal of Willis' character is revealed) which I won't give away, but let's just say when the audience I saw this movie with was blindsided by this aggressively dark plot development (involving children) the somewhat light atmosphere in the theater was thrust into an immediate and very uncomfortable silence. The second tonal aberration comes into play with the introduction of a small child (Gagnon) who throws nasty temper tantrums. Though the real star of the show here is Johnson's script, with an almost perfectly structured plot, "Looper" is only flawed by a few visuals that go awry; all of which are centered around the child character. In short, and not to give too much away, the sequences when the child has his "tantrums" are filmed in such a way, as to resemble something out of a bad episode of "Heroes". And while the unavoidably over-dramatized and unintentionally funny scenes of this child having a fit, in slow motion, doesn't take away anything from this massively intriguing storyline, "Looper" is a perfect example of a film that would have been much more impactful as a book (if you know what I mean).
Final Thought: Is "Looper" the greatest Sci-Fi movie of the year? Yeah, it probably is, seeing that the amount of movies which would fall under the Sci-Fi genre in 2012 is quite thin. And it is worth seeing for the story structure alone, but visually I wasn't as blown away (aside from a few scenes of visual brilliance) as I thought I was going to be. In saying that, the hype machine may have gotten to me far too prematurely, because at the end of the day "Looper" is in fact a well constructed piece of Sci-Fi entertainment, which will be thought of by many as being as innovative as "Inception" was a few years ago (even though "Inception" was a better Sci-Fi film).
Written by Markus Robinson, Edited by Nicole I. Ashland
Follow me on Twitter @moviesmarkus