MOVIE REVIEW - Looper

This week the new Sci-Fi thriller Looper is out with a nice cast and overall a good story.

Looper stars Joseph Gordon Levitt,  Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt and a solid supporting cast.   This is for the most part well done with a strong emphasis on story and performances as opposed to special effects. And that generally gives way to better movie making.

Looper is set in 2044, and once again a very grim picture of our future in this country takes center stage.   Looper takes place in Kansas, in what you are guessing is either a new gigantic city, or Kansas City, Kansas all grown up.   Physical time travel has been invented and is strictly outlawed.  The only people still using time travel is organized crime 30 years in the future (2074).   Since disposing a body is virtually impossible because of technology, they send back people they want killed to 2044, and "Loopers" are assassins that kill and dispose bodies in 2044.  

Meet Joe (Levitt).  He is a Looper and is making his way through the world making a good living.  Until the person that is sent back to him is...him, 30 years from now. (Willis).   He can't kill himself, so the older him escapes and that can have huge ramifications of the future.  The future him has seen the future and knows that there is a young boy in 2044 that will grow up and dominate the word with powers no one can imagine.  He is out to kill the boy.  In the meantime, 2044 Joe is trying to survive the mob who is now out to get him because of his failure to kill himself, and to save the boy and maybe, just maybe alter the future. 

Looper has a few problems that can't be overlooked. First, is is way too long.   This would be so much better if they would have chopped it down some, and eliminated some draggy parts.  And as interesting as the story is, they don't really develop a great villain that you really hate, (Jeff Daniels).  He is the head of the mob in 2044, that was sent back from 2074 to oversee the Loopers.   But it's not his fault. Some bad writing gets in the way of this story line. 

But Looper does have a nice story, and a few twists and turns that make it very enjoyable.  It also stays on its path and doesn't let  ancillary story lines clog it up.  Levitt is OK here, Willis gets a role that is far better for him that anything he's had in a while and it was good to see him act again. Emily Blunt is great as the mother of the little boy targeted by the Loopers.  She sheds her British accent and goes mid-western and is very effective as a desperate mother trying to raise and save her little boy.

Looper.   Not perfect, but few are. But except for being entirely too long, this is pretty good.