Looper Review

This review is based on one of the most anticipated films of 2012; Rian Johnson’s Looper! Rian Johnson; a fairly new director to the scene began his career in just 2005 with ‘Brick’ which also starred Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Looper had high expectations but opened bigger than we could have guessed, sailing past the $19M/$20M estimates. I guess people are just loopy for Looper!

The film is set in the year of 2044, as well as 30 years into the future from then, 2074 when time-travel has been invented. It isn’t widely used and is only available to those who are willing to pay for it on the black market. When the Mob wants to eliminate someone, it sends the target into the past where a Looper waits for them to finish the job. However, one day they must close their own loop. The Looper must pull the trigger on their future self as they hold too much information about those who employ them, when that time comes they must eliminate their future self as they would anyone and accept that 30 years from that moment they will disappear.

Looper is an incredibly exciting time-travel thriller with a clever concept behind it all. I have to say there were times within the film where I found myself a little confused as to what was happening due to the fast pace of the film. However, what I like most about Looper is that it isn’t all action; it has an intelligent story behind it. The film doesn’t need constant gun action to keep the audience gripped like a lot of films. Though, when the guns do come out blazing it makes great entertainment with Bruce Willis adopting his former Die Hard role.

Before the release of Looper, one thing I was keen to see was the effort made to transform Joseph Gordon-Levitt into a younger Bruce Willis. Personally, I couldn’t picture how they were going to achieve this. It wasn’t perfect and took a lot of getting use to but in my opinion they pulled it off due to the clear effort from the make-up artists, stylists and Joseph Gordon-Levitt himself who performed as the actor Bruce Willis very well.

CARLY'S OPINION: Looper is a must see for absolutely anyone who loves films, especially you hardcore sci-fiers!