Incoherent nonsense

Rating: 3/10 (10 February 2013)

The many reviews praising Looper as "intelligent" misled me to expect one of those very rare things in Hollywood: a consistent, coherent time-travel film. But in fact this movie makes little more sense than Back to the Future. While I can forgive time-travel nonsense in frivolous films like Back to the Future, it is excusable in a film like Looper with pretensions of seriousness. The basic premise, about looping and "closing your loop", is quite clever and got my hopes up. But the plot soon descends into stupidity -- the explanation of memories given by Bruce Willis's character is especially dumb.
Film-makers should be forced to read some philosophy of time travel (e.g. the excellent work of David Lewis), and to demonstrate they have understood it, before they are let near a time travel story.
For a consistent time travel film (starring Bruce Willis), I recommend 12 Monkeys -- so much better than this loopy rubbish.