Review: Looper

To the cinema twice in a week! Following last weeks viewing of the brilliant Judge Dredd (if you haven't watched it yet I am disappointed!), i decided to check out Rian Johnson's latest movie Looper. Johnson is a relative noob to the world of movie directing but with films such as The Brothers Bloom (quirky little film about con artists) as well as well an award winning episode of Breaking Bad, Johnson is definitely one of the most exciting and unique writers and directors out there at the moment.

So where does that leave Looper? For a first foray into Sci-fi, Johnson has created a movie that doesn't over complicate the often tricky theme of time travel. We are told its set in the not too distant future and there is one particular scene between young Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and older Joe (Bruce Willis) that pretty much spells out how the time travel thing works, if you haven't worked it out yourself!

Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are both fantastic in their role as Joe. As the film progresses, their motivations create a tension that draws the viewer in because its easy to accept each characters point of view. When they share screen time together, Willis and Gordon-Levitt are given some fantastic dialogue and rather surprisingly for a film.of this nature there are a lot of genuinely funny moments.

The supporting cast flesh out the story well. Emily Blunt continues to pick roles in some cracking films and her character in Looper is the one who will draw the biggest emotive reaction from the audience. Jeff Daniels continues to surprise me with his recent resurgence as a Hollywood a-lister. He plays a character who appears to have taken inspiration from The Dude which is never a bad thing.

I won't discuss the plot because it was refreshing seeing such an original movie without knowing too much about it. The film takes a rather brave turn half way through, transferring the plot from this futuristic city to a farm. It is the second half of the movie that is the strongest because it is so focussed on the individual characters in a very remote location rather than the sprawling decaying city landscape of the first half. The farm setting leads to a lot of character progression and some rather unnerving scenes involving small children so be warned!

So this is big, Looper gets my first 5 star review. One of the best movies of the year in my book. Just go and enjoy yourself for a couple of hours, maybe even make it a double and watch Dredd after it!!