Five things about Looper, plus a bonus thing:
1) It’s not like Primer. I had heard that Primer‘s writer/director/star Shane Carruth worked on Looper, which artificially inflated my expectations in regards to Primer-like loopiness.
2) That said, I never knew what was going to happen. I spent the entire movie double- and triple-guessing myself.
3) Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Young Bruce Willis makeup is distracting. Also, Bruce Willis should never have hair. And apparently this doesn’t bother anyone else, but their ears are different. This would not have bothered me if they hadn’t tried so hard with the other makeup.
4) I loved the Blade Runner-esque world-building to tiny bits, from the TK stuff to the casual absorption of tech into the established world (especially things like the security screen on the loft door) to the DIY retrofitting of the cars (about which nothing was said at all, which is perfect). I’m still not excited about the see-through phones we’re going to have in the future, but I guess I am going to have to get used to it.
5) However, this is not a future which is awesome for ladies. I am going to chalk that up to its inevitable elements of noir, but I am giving Rian Johnson a bit of a side-eye: noir or not, ladies can be other things than moms, waitresses, or prostitutes. I promise.
In the end, it’s worth seeing, absolutely, but it wasn’t what I had expected it to be, so I had to do some adjusting. In the end, I think my favorite Rian Johnson film so far is actually The Brothers Bloom, because in spite of all of the cons & in spite of my deep love for the perfect style of Brick, Bloom is the movie with a heart. But Looper is still worth your time.
wicked jaws 