“Looper” Film Review: Joseph looks like Bruce

by iconmatthew1

Rian Johnson has worked with Joseph Gordon-Levitt before; with the indie hit “Brick.” Now the duo are working together again in one of the most anticipated sci-fi movies in recent years “Looper.” The movie deals with time travel and any movie dealing with time travel can become complicated but in short: Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Joe and Bruce Willis plays Joe as well, except 30 year older. The movie takes place in 2047 and 30 years from that date time travel has been invented. Instantly outlawed, the mob now controls it and sends back people they want dead to 2047 so they can be killed off and the crime of murder technically doesn’t exist. A brilliant and equally horrific plan. Joe is one of these hired assassins called “Loopers” and he’s living the life with his job, but there is a catch. Eventually all loopers will end up killing the future versions of themselves it’s called “closing your loop.” So it’s a job with an extreme expiration date. “Looper” takes off when Bruce Willis (Joe older) is zapped back to the past but escapes and now it’s up to Joesph Gordon-Levitt to stop his older self from changing the future and getting the both of them killed.

“Looper” is an effective and well done film, and one that certainly deserves multiple viewings to take everything in. That being said this movie is good, not great. There has been a lot of hype and high praise for the film, so maybe my expectations were too high and I recognized that so I waited a few days to review the film. And while I find is satisfactory it’s missing something. I’m not sure what it is but it’s missing something that would take it to that level from “Entertaining” to “Classic.” Without spoiling anything the 1st and 2nd acts of this movie are outstanding, tense, inventive and the stuff of masterpieces. The third act though causes a lot of issues and the film almost collapses under it’s own weight. And I wouldn’t even say it packed on that many pounds.

If you like science fiction it’s surely a movie to see for the technology and fine acting performances. For me the single most impressive aspect of this film is the make up. Joseph Gordon-Levitt looks strikingly like a young Bruce Willis in many shots and even was able to nail some of Willis’ mannerisms like that cool cockeyed smile. The make up was done by Brent Baker, Jamie Kelman and Kazuhiro Tsuji among others. The prosthetic work on Joseph’s face alone in my opinion makes it worthy of an Academy award nomination. You may not notice how similar they look in the commercials but trust me once the subtlties sink in during the course of the film you’ll be convinced they are the same person. Joseph and Bruce do tremendous work acting as does Jeff Daniels in a very cold but never distant performance. Emily Blunt is solid in her role but I don’t think her character is written strongly enough. There is a serious lack of connection with her and her motivations. Alright so if you want to know more about my thoughts on this film you can click to read more, but there will be SPOILERSso I feel it’s fair to warn you as the only way I can articulate my major disappointment with this film is by revealing the ending. I recommend this movie to science fiction fans, but I feel those not familiar with the genre will be lost and won’t care for it very much. Though I could always be wrong.