BY MICHAEL GOODPASTER
When I first saw the trailer for Looper I wasn’t all that impressed. I’ve been a sucker to so many bad science fiction action movies over the past few years that I had a hard time accepting this would be any different. Bruce Willis’s track record with me isn’t the greatest and despite being a fan of Joseph Gordon-Levitt he just hasn’t won me over enough yet to warrant me getting exciting about every movie he’s in. Then the movie came out and tons of people saw it and loved it. The reviews were great, but I was still a little hesitant. I eventually caved in. Looper is set in the future where time travel has been invented, outlawed, and now is part of the black market. The mafia of the future goes back in time and kills people. The assassins are called “loopers”. These loopers also get the weird life of knowing they’re part of a cycle. They have to kill their older selves. The story focuses on Joseph Gordon-Levitt who encounters his older self-played by Bruce Willis. What happens next is a time traveling game of cat and mouse between the same person as we discover more and more about the criminals involved. It goes a hell of a lot deeper than that, but the story needs to be experienced to be really processed. I do recommend it. It did live up to the hype it got from the critics and casual fans. This is the type of movie and role that worked perfectly within the Bruce Willis realm of characters. We’ve seen him play this type of character before but it doesn’t always equal success. It all depends on the story, the directing, the co-stars, and many many more little things that factor. Looper is a movie were the stars align and we’re treated to an example to why Bruce Willis IS Bruce Willis and not “just another Bruce Willis movie”. Joseph Gordon-Levitt was great is his portion of the character as well. He carries a big portion of the movie and brings something to the screen we’ve not seen before. The make-up was cool, but he got lost in that character and it should not go unnoticed come award season. On top of these two co-stars, we had a nice collection of supporting actors. Jeff Daniels is an awesomely evil mafia boss, Piper Perabo is hot as a showgirl, and Emily Blunt is stunning in the stripped down role of a rural farmer. There were some parts that dragged a little and it didn’t blow my mind on an “Inception” type of capacity, but not many movies would. This is most likely the best science fiction movie of the year and probably the best action movie of 2012. I want to watch it again to fully absorb it, but I was pleasantly surprised with this movie. B+
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