'Looper' movie review

I finally managed to see the highly anticipated sci-fi thriller Looper. The movie really intrigued its audience with a cool trailer and a cool premise. The film is set in the near future, where time-travel has already been invented, but quickly became restricted and is only used by large criminal organizations. Because everyone in the future is under some kind of control, it's basically impossible to kill someone or dispose a body, so these mobs have to kidnap their victims and send them 30 years back into the past onto a point, where a hired gun, known as a looper is waiting to kill them. But the moment in the trailer that really intrigued everibody was where Joseph Gordon-Levitt, a looper is waiting for his next target to show up, only to discover - his target is Bruce Willis, himself from the future.

When I saw the trailer, I was kinda worried that the movie really blowed of its trick, its twist or basically the intriguing plot point. But when I saw the great reviews coming in, I realised there's a whole lot more to Looper then its premise, and I was right. The story is original, mind-bending, and at the same time - has heart. But the screenplay is not only great in terms of the storyline, but also in the realistic and witty (but not too funny) dialogue between the characters. I don't know who really to thank here, was it make-up or special effects or whoever made Gordon-Levitt EXACTLY like Bruce Willis. He doesn't look a bit like himself and also delivers some great acting. He really nails Bruce Willis's mimics and way of speaking, but still doesn't work like a cheap copy or an impersonator, but an interesting and amazingly portrayed character. Howewer, the thing that really makes the movie is Rian Johnson's directing.

Looper is incredibly more stylized then I tought it would be. There are these minor details that spark around the world of the future. For an example, the movie never really explains how time-travel works in it, how the world is under control and all those things, but rather just concentrates on the story and the characters, so these details really just work like sparkling gems, scaling the futuristic scenery. Johnson's directing style is great and somewhere (as weird as it sounds), a mix of J.J. Abrams and Wes Anderson. You have Abrams's enyoyable and effective shaky-cam scenes and lens flares and Anderson's ironically-artsy camera spins and turns that make the innovative action scenes even more enyoyable. The original score by a first-time-hear composer who is quite probably the director's brother or something and is like a mic of that annoying electronic trailer music (but not annoying in this movie) and a few minimalistic piano pieces.

                                              

But no matter to all of these good things, I cannot deny that I just expected the movie to be more, then it was. It's actually quite slow in parts, has a few amazing visuals, but still works more of an artsy movie sometimes. Perhaps my expectations were simply too high, as I tought of all the hype and raving reviews, this would be some kind of Inception, but it simply wasn't. I don't want to compare the two movies too much, since they are completely different, but the film just didn't reach my expectations. But in conclusion, Looper still is an original, intriguing and entertaining film, and quite probably the best sci-fi movie I've seen for some time.

Total rating: 8 / 10 

So what did you think of Looper? Did it reach your expectations? Were you satisfied with the mixed-felt ending? Comment below, let me know!