Question: What kind of review did Todd McCarthy give Looper?
About the article "Looper (film)", section "Toronto International Film Festival".

Candidate passages:
James Mottram of "Total Film" gave "Looper" 5 stars out of 5, concluding that it was "the best sci-fi movie since "Moon".
The best time-travel yarn since "12 Monkeys".
And one of the best films of 2012.
"Todd McCarthy of "The Hollywood Reporter" gave the film a positive review, calling it "an engaging, neatly worked-out time-travel sci-fi thriller", but also criticizing the effects involved in making Gordon-Levitt resemble Willis: "At first, the effect is a bit odd, and you can't quite put your finger on what's off; then it feels downright weird to be looking at a version of Gordon-Levitt who is no longer the actor you've known for a few years now.
"Peter Debruge of "Variety" also gave the film a positive review, writing that writer-director Johnson's "grandly conceived, impressively mounted third feature shows a giddy, geeky interest in science-fiction, then forces it into the back seat and lets the multidimensional characters drive.
In a genre infamous for loose ends, this thinking man's thriller marshals action, romance and a dose of very dark comedy toward a stunning payoff."
Kim Newman of "Empire" magazine gave "Looper" 5 stars out of 5, writing, "Intelligent science-fiction sometimes seems an endangered species—too much physics and there's a risk of creating something cold and remote, too many explosions and get lost in the multiplex.
"Looper" isn't perfect, but it pulls off the full "Wizard Of Oz": it has a brain, courage and a heart."
Noel Murray of "The A.V.
Club" gave the film an A− grade, writing, ""Looper" is a remarkable feat of imagination and execution, entertaining from start to finish, even as it asks the audience to contemplate how and why humanity keeps making the same rotten mistakes."
Kenneth Turan of the "Los Angeles Times" gave the film a positive review, writing, ""Looper" is way inventive but it wears its creativity lightly, like it's no big deal.
This is a highflying, super-stylish science-fiction thriller that brings a fresh approach to mind-bending genre material.
We're not always sure where this time-travel film is going, but we wouldn't dream of abandoning the ride.
"Claudia Puig of "USA Today" gave the film 3.5 stars out of 4, writing, ""Looper"s heady blend of time travel, gritty action and a jot of romance is such a thrilling and cerebral mind-bender that it will likely have moviegoers gathering outside the theater afterward to hash out details of its intricately constructed universe.
Not that that's a bad thing."
Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" also gave the film 3.5 stars out of 4, praising the performances of Willis and Gordon-Levitt and concluding, "Lacing tremendously exciting action with touching gravity, "Looper" hits you like a shot in the heart."
Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" also gave the film 3.5 stars out of 4, praising its screenplay and writing, ""Looper", a smart and tricky sci-fi story, sidesteps the paradoxes of time travel by embracing them.
Most time travel movies run into trouble in the final scenes, when impossibilities pile up one upon another.
This film leads to a startling conclusion that wipes out the story's paradoxes so neatly it's as if it never happened.
"Lisa Schwarzbaum of "Entertainment Weekly" gave the film a B+ grade, writing, "The time swivels in "Looper" evoke some of "Inception"s fancy temporal tricks (some of which, of course, also involved Gordon-Levitt straddling multiple time zones at once).
But it's the glimpses of "Children of Men"-like societal dystopia that give the movie its real weight".
Keith Staskiewicz, also writing for "Entertainment Weekly" (reviewing the DVD) and also giving a "B+", said, "The film's premise is markedly inventive, and Rian Johnson spends a lot of time making his universe seem lived-in and believable, but he's not just concerned with whiz-bang what-ifs.
The showdown of selves illuminates just how little Gordon-Levitt's character has changed over the intervening years, stuck as he is in a feedback loop of drug use and violence despite his pipe dream of moving to Europe.
The retro trench coats and firearms also suggest a sort of eternal recurrence, and as "Looper"'s plot gets more complex, its central question simplifies: If we can't fix our mistakes, can we at least make sure we don't repeat the same ones over and over again?
"Richard Corliss of "Time" magazine gave the film a positive review, calling "Looper" a "hybrid, mashing Quentin Tarantino and Philip K. Dick into a species of pulp science fiction" and also writing, "A fanciful film with the patina of hyper-realism, "Looper" is well served by actors who behave not as if they were dropped carelessly into the future but spent their whole desperate lives there."
Dana Stevens of "Slate" gave the film a mixed review, writing, ""Looper" felt to me like a maddening near-miss: It posits an impossible but fascinating-to-imagine relationship – a face-to-face encounter between one's present and future self, in which each self must account for its betrayal of the other – and then throws away nearly all the dramatic potential that relationship offers.
"Audiences polled by the market research firm CinemaScore gave the film a B+ grade on average. 
On her The Movie Archive Review website, Marjorie Johns awarded the film a score of six out of ten, stating that the film's "fantasy elements work well" and concluding that "it's a sweet natured, unpretentious little movie and not Scorsese".
Film critic Todd McCarthy of "Variety" based his negative review of the film on the fact that "the fantasy element...is exasperatingly tame", claiming that the screenwriters "have kept their imaginations too inhibited and domesticated where greater flights of fancy would have been welcome".
McCarthy did agree that his "sympathy goes out to Salinger" for her ability to "remain somewhat likable" and that a "number of talented thesps brighten up the supporting cast" even though "few will count this among their more stellar credits".
Critic Peter Rainer of "Los Angeles Times" summarized his opinion with the opening sentence of his review titled "Magic Bubbles Can't Help "Un-Becoming"".
He stated: "The comic premise of "Un-Becoming Age"...doesn't make a whit of sense" 
  Bullock-Curtiss Little Looper  Dallman Little Looper  Bullock-Curtiss Pusher  
Critical reception.
In June 2011, Alison Boshoff from "Daily Mail" reported that a test screening of "W.E.
", which was kept under wraps, was said to have drawn negative reception from its audience.
Viewers believed the film did not add up and seemed more like an advertisement than what its production values were.
After its premiere at the Venice Film Festival, it received mixed reviews.
Some news sources reported that "critics were completely divided on their opinions".
When nine reviews of the critics who had seen the film in Venice were tabulated, "The Huffington Post" gave the film the overall critical score of D. Steve Pond of "Reuters" theorized that "W.E" probably would not help in "turning Madonna's faltering movie career".
Kyle Buchanan of "New York" wondered whether "W.E."
would receive any significant film related awards, as predicted by industry prognosticators.
He concluded that the film "still may awards, but to judge from some of the vicious pans coming out of Venice today, it might have longer legs as a Razzie front-runner."
"Daily Mail"s Baz Bamigboye gave the film a mostly positive review, saying that "A lot of people will loathe it, simply because it’s been made by Madonna.
But if people were to watch it with no knowledge of who directed, they would be pleasantly surprised.
They might even find much of it enjoyable."
David Gritten of "The Daily Telegraph" gave the film three stars and a mixed review stating that, "Madonna's "W.E."
is a bold and confident story about an American woman's obsession with the Windsors."
Gritten complimented Riseborough and Cornish's acting but felt that the film looked like a commercial of expensive items, thus making it appeal to younger women for its fashion portrayal.
Negative reviews came from Xan Brooks of "The Guardian", who gave the film one star, describing it as "a primped and simpering folly, the turkey that dreamed it was a peacock.
Brooks predicted that the film "may even surpass 2008's "Filth and Wisdom", Madonna's calamitous first outing as a film-maker.
Her direction is so all over the shop that it barely qualifies as direction at all."
Pointing out a scene, he added that "Wallis bound on stage to dance with a Masai tribesman while Pretty Vacant blares on the soundtrack.
But why?
What point is she making?
That social-climbing Wallis-Simpson was the world's first punk-rocker?"
Todd McCarthy from "The Hollywood Reporter" wrote that the film resembled a documentary of a woman out on shopping.
McCarthy felt that the storyline was especially dreary during the portrayal of the love affair between Wally and Evgeni.
"For the audience, Wally, despite Cornish's gentle and warm presence, offers very little in terms of personal interest or as a key into the world of one of the last century's most discussed couples."
However, McCarthy praised cinematographer Hagen Bogdaski's work.
Oliver Lyttelton of indieWire also slammed the film stating that "the use of music is horrible" and "We’ve never looked forward to Madonna going back on tour more, if only because it means that we’ll know, for certain, that she won’t be using that time to direct another movie."
Emma Pritchard from "Grazia" added that "Wallis Simpson was the kind of woman who was accused of being more style than substance – and that, alas, is what Madonna has recreated on screen with "W.E.""
Mark Adams of "Screen Daily" singled out Riseborough's performance as a "highlight", but overall felt that the film was disappointing.
Leslie Felperin from "Variety" was disappointed in the film, saying that it is "burdened with risible dialogue and weak performances".
Felperin felt that the reason for the film's downfall was its script, which attended to the costumes and fashion more than the actual story, which she felt had much potential, but was unused.