Film Review: Looper

Director: Rian Johnson

A slick sci-fi thriller which should be lauded for an original plot that looks at the world of time travel . It's plot owes a lot to The Terminator which was made by James Cameron but adds in the fact that Joe Simmons (Joseph Gordon Levitt) has to kill himself sent from the future. One of the main things made immediately apparent is Levitt's prosthetics to make the shape of his face look like Bruce Willis'.

Joe Simmons (Joseph Gordon-Levitt)

Joe Simmons is a Looper, a man whose job it is to kill people sent from 30 years in the future where time travel has been invented. He lives in 2044 where the economy has collapsed and a lot of the world lives in poverty, to close the loop the crime bosses from the future send the loopers back to be killed by themselves. The reward for their work is a 30 year retirement paid for in gold bars sent from the future but Joe lets his future self escape.

Old Joe (Bruce Willis)

Joseph Gordon Levitt continues to prove he is an impressive actor whilst Bruce Willis is barely required to do anything other than shoot and brawl with bad guys. Jeff Daniels is a great bit part character, subtly threatening as Joe's boss Abe. The futuristic style has many subtle differences to our world now with a few tweaks which was a nice touch and the repeated use of cornfields throughout.

The idea behind time travelling is clearly explained in a voice over at the beginning and generally kept simple as the film lies mostly behind the storyline in young Joe's world. The plot is engaging but stutters massively in the second half of the film and a lot of scenes could easily have been cut out altogether. The cat and mouse chase grinds to a halt for a good 20mins late on but it's biggest failure is the ability to produce characters you can relate to and root for, although a satisfying finale is finally reached.

2/4 clever opportunity is pretty much wasted