It’s hard to make a good time travel movie. In fact, it’s hard to make any sort of media about time travel good. The story runs the risk of becoming so cluttered with various timelines, characters and paradoxes that it becomes virtually incomprehensible. While this is alright if the material is approached in a goofy, camp science-fiction sort of way, it can be disastrous if the story is meant to be taken completely seriously. Looper is a film that takes the risk of approaching time travel science fiction in a serious way, and manages to pull it off superbly.
The film opens with simple, yet crucial exposition: in the future, time-travel is invented and then outlawed. Illegal crime bosses begin using it to send assassination targets into the past so they are killed by hit men known as Loopers, since it is impossible to dispose of a body in this future. The story is focused on the character of Joe Simmons, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Joe is a Looper, having joined the job with the understanding that when it is time for him to retire, his future self will be sent back for him to kill, causing him to “close his loop”. However, when Joe’s future self arrives, played by Bruce Willis, Joe accidentally allows him to escape and a manhunt begins.
One of the best parts about Looper is how the complicated-sounding plot is made very easy to understand. There is no excessive mucking about with verbal exposition of paradoxes, infinite time loops or anything else that tends to bog down time-travel narratives. Not that there aren’t any paradoxes in the film. This is a movie that eats time paradoxes for breakfast. However, it manages to play with the conventions of a paradox in a way that works to the advantage of the narrative. One of the most memorable scenes is one in which members of the mafia cut a message into the arm of a Looper to draw his future self to a certain place. In addition, there is the paradox of Joe interacting with his future self, who is a very different character. While some movies might ignore resolution of plot details such as this, Looper manages to have a satisfying conclusion that manages to be simple while still eliminating whatever time travel confusion that has accumulated by the end of the story. In fact, it ends almost as if the story never occurred in the first place.
That isn’t to say Looper is a film where nothing is resolved. While the characters certainly end up being changed for the better, it is arguable how much better that change is, and what other effects it will have. When the conclusion arrives, it is short, brutal and emotional. This is another aspect in which Looper succeeds. It is an emotional science-fiction film in which the characters seem genuinely human. Gordon-Levitt and Willis’s performances are great, and it’s easy to see them as two sides of the same desperate person. I was surprised by Emily Blunt, who plays the film’s third main character, a farm owner named Sara. Although the character of Sara doesn’t appear until almost more than halfway through the movie, Blunt’s portrayal properly paints her as the emotional crux she is meant to be from the moment she is introduced until the film’s final moments.
The only problem I had with the film was the lackluster resolution of certain plot threads. For example, one of the film’s main villains is killed in a rather anticlimactic “battle”. The mere shrugging-off of his death reminded me of Bane’s supposed death near the end of The Dark Knight Rises. One of the main threats is eliminated, and no one seems to care too much. But in their defense, both the plots of Looper and The Dark Knight Rises had introduced bigger fish to fry at that point.
A term often used in reference to the Academy Awards is “Oscar Bait”. It refers to a movie that tries its hardest to be intentionally deep and artistic to win at the aforementioned awards, at the expense of being actually enjoyable to general audiences. I mention this because Looper could most definitely be classified as science-fiction Oscar Bait. However, its entertainment factor is not overshadowed by its emotion and seriousness. While I do think that Looper will at least be nominated for the upcoming Academy Awards, I also think it will remain a durable science-fiction feature for years to come.
4.5/5
