Looper

Why isn't sci-fi fun anymore? Why does everything have to be a commentary on religion or a 2001 wannabe? Why are all the societies dystopian? Why are all the main characters jaded and brooding? What happened to the sense of adventure and hope for the future? Where are the science villains and the ray guns and the jet packs? And since when did doing away with all that become synonymous with "smart" genre filmmaking? Tarantino is smart, the Coen Brothers are smart, and they have lots of fun with genres. So how come sci-fi is becoming so pretentious and empty? I'm not exactly sure, but Looper doesn't help anything. Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a Looper, a hitman who kills targets sent back from thirty years in the future by the mob. He gets paid in silver and is saving most of it to move to France. Joe is doing well for himself, but notices that most of his colleagues are "closing their Loops;" killing their future selves for a huge payday and erasing evidence of the Looper working for the mafia. This doesn't bother Joe, even when he gives up his friend (Paul Dano) for cash. One day, Future Joe (Bruce Willis) arrives with a mind to change the past and prevent a future, and knocks out Joe before getting away. Now Joe has to avoid mob assassins while trying to close his Loop, and figure out their plan for each other. I feel pressured by Looper. I feel like it's a movie that I'm supposed to love, just because of the cast, and Rian Johnson, and because it's "smart." It's a film that chastises me for bringing up the flaws because like Scott Pilgrim, it's "cool" to like it. As if I needed another reason to dislike Looper. Looper is one of the messiest and surprisingly shallow action films I've seen since Unknown. Around ninety-five percent of the film is hype riding on the coattails of Johnson's previous films, and the remaining five percent under the simple fact that Looper doesn't really make sense. The time travel concept is unique, but it's so convoluted, and it's made moot by the endless explanatory dialogue that just contradicts itself. The other major problem with Looper is that it desperately wants to be Blade Runner, and it just isn't. To say that Looper is influenced by that film would be a gross understatement. The entire visual aesthetic, especially the lighting and use of narration, is so similar that I actually scrubbed my eyes a couple times to make sure it wasn't a remake. Looper isn't as clever as it seems to be; people teleport, consequences are selective, and nothing really happens. It's also far too long before Bruce Willis shows up, and then he introduces a whole new plot that adds another level of silliness to the whole thing but ALSO ends up being the driving point of the story. One thing I will give Looper is that the makeup used on Joseph Gordon-Levitt is incredible. He looks just like a young Bruce Willis, if Bruce Willis had a full head of hair. THe acting, besides the pointless Emily Blunt character, is pretty good, but it's hard to praise it when JGL is just doing an imitation of Willis. Plus, there's a criminal underuse of Jeff Daniels, which I cannot condone nor forgive. So overall, Looper has a lot of good intentions and ideas. Futuristic hitmen are after all, badass. But it's sadly such a big mess and such a misfire on almost all counts that I cannot recommend it.