Looper: 5 out of 5
Joe: Time travel has not yet been invented. But thirty years from now, it will have been.
Time
travel movies can often be tricky. I am a big fan of films that attempt
to utilize the subject, as I like to spend plenty of time thinking about the
logic involved. In many cases, regardless of how much fun or how good the
film is, the logic is not really sound. Some time travel flicks work
because of how much time they spend detailing their own logistics (Primer
is the ultimate example of this). Others work because of how little they seem
to care about the logic (think Bill & Ted). But then there are
time travel films that just fail on all fronts (think Timecop).
Writer/director Rian Johnson’s Looper excels at making its time travel
premise work, because it smartly sidesteps a lot of its own issues by almost
using its setup as a clever misdirect. As characters bend time, the film
bends its own meaning, with a smart and original script and solid performances
to hold it all together.