Massimo Marino's Blog: The Ramblings and the Rumblings - Posts Tagged "looper"
Looper - The Movie. 3.5 stars
In the near future, the Mafia has developed a foolproof system to remove all unwanted witnesses. It sends its victims in the past, in our time, where the killers of a new kind (the "Loopers") remove the "problem".
One day one of them, Joe, discovers that the victim he must eliminate it is none other than... himself, with 30 more years.
As entertainment, the story copes well with the paradox of time travel, especially when the future 'interacts' with its own past. If you go back in time and kill your father in his childhood...what happens to you? And if you succeeded, how the hell were you existing to go back in time and kill your child-father? See the problem?
Looper, in a sense, conveys decently the idea that this creates vortices in the flux of time, where all possibilities co-exist, spinning and repeating themselves ad infinitum till someone, somehow breaks the loop. The loop itself, sending your old yourself back in time, to be killed by the young yourself is the "Loop," and it is not broken by the young-self killing the old-self.
All goes well for as long as the young killers accept to kill the oldselves—to end their career—and live 30 years in lusty richness...and so on...
If the well oiled machine derailed...
The story flows a bit slowly at the beginning, and you wonder whether the movie will ever become interesting, then the machine derails. From that point on it is well paced, actors are credible, and there are scenes that will make you laugh.
You need to be very open minded toward time travels as it is a paradox, and those paradoxes do appear in the movie plot. So if you ask yourself very rational questions you will lose the 'magic'.
All in all, an enjoyable movie. Lots of killing, though, so be warned. It is not a love story.
Ok, there is one but it is a gimmick ;)
The story is a 4, some weaknesses on treating the time travel paradoxes deserve a 3. The result is in the middle.
One day one of them, Joe, discovers that the victim he must eliminate it is none other than... himself, with 30 more years.
As entertainment, the story copes well with the paradox of time travel, especially when the future 'interacts' with its own past. If you go back in time and kill your father in his childhood...what happens to you? And if you succeeded, how the hell were you existing to go back in time and kill your child-father? See the problem?
Looper, in a sense, conveys decently the idea that this creates vortices in the flux of time, where all possibilities co-exist, spinning and repeating themselves ad infinitum till someone, somehow breaks the loop. The loop itself, sending your old yourself back in time, to be killed by the young yourself is the "Loop," and it is not broken by the young-self killing the old-self.
All goes well for as long as the young killers accept to kill the oldselves—to end their career—and live 30 years in lusty richness...and so on...
If the well oiled machine derailed...
The story flows a bit slowly at the beginning, and you wonder whether the movie will ever become interesting, then the machine derails. From that point on it is well paced, actors are credible, and there are scenes that will make you laugh.
You need to be very open minded toward time travels as it is a paradox, and those paradoxes do appear in the movie plot. So if you ask yourself very rational questions you will lose the 'magic'.
All in all, an enjoyable movie. Lots of killing, though, so be warned. It is not a love story.
Ok, there is one but it is a gimmick ;)
The story is a 4, some weaknesses on treating the time travel paradoxes deserve a 3. The result is in the middle.
