I watched this movie recently because it looked like a pretty cool time travel flick. I knew Joseph Gordon-Levitt was in it, but I didn’t recognize him as the main character in the movie. Apparently they changed his appearance to look more like his older self (played by Bruce Willis). Both of these actors gave good performances in the movie, as well as Jeff Daniels in a bad guy role. The movie did have some cool effects like doing stuff to a younger self affecting the older version. The idea of sending back people to kill them was kind of cool in the beginning.
Unfortunately, the story had some problems with it. In the trailer, the way I understood it Joseph’s character is a looper, a person who kills people sent back in time. Then his future self is sent back and this is a big deal. However, in the movie this happened to all loopers at some point (referred to as “closing the loop”). You were supposed to kill your future self and the mob (who sent people back) paid you big bucks for this and you retired from your job. Throw in that 10% of the population somehow gets telekinesis in the future (which is not important until the end, so it really only serves as an excuse for how some events take place in the future). Throw in the killing of children to stop a future bad guy (even though it is portrayed as heinous, was this really necessary?). Also a fall from 20 feet up onto a car with no discernible injuries by one character?
The end of movie solution to a problem is interesting, as is Bruce kicking butt over the bad guys, but the ending also makes you wonder what you sat through everything for. Maybe the main characters struggle of what to do about his future self who doesn’t want to die?
Looper is worth watching for the effects, interesting ideas, and butt-kicking. I was just disappointed it wasn’t better. I gave it 3 out of 5 stars.