“Looper” Review

Looper is fantastic.

Looper as a sci-fi starts out with a really well placed foundation. The future is stricken with poverty and suffering, and a mafia like group rules over the cities. The often complex ideas that surround these types of films were given plenty of time to settle in the minds of viewers; what a looper is, how the future looks, what life is like for people in the future, and how time travel works into life. The best thing Looper does is make all of this seem nonchalant. It doesn’t make much marvel at the thought of time travel, and even Bruce Willis says “It doesn’t f****** matter!”  when questions are raised. It instead allows greater focus on the more intricate plot to take place between the main characters Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and his older self (Bruce Willis). The acting quality is miles ahead of the usual genre standard, especially thanks to the leading roles taken up by two well renowned names.

It’s a sheer entertaining story, one that is packed with plenty of good action and some gruesome violence within the tradition of dealings with crime syndicates. The well kept pace of the plot keeps you engaged throughout, and it takes several unexpected directions. I would be surprised if while watching you aren’t guessing to the very end. Other than the brilliant conclusion to the story, there is no grand moral compass that guides the rest of the movie. It’s simply a thought-provoking thriller that takes the complexity of baffling concepts and molds them into a fresh and accessible story that has no comparative equal. What more can I say?

I give it a 9.4/10