It is the case in this age of social media, television, Internet and an unremitting desire to make as much money as physically possible that it’s rare that a film doesn’t come to us with the billing that it will redefine cinema; push the boundaries of how we think and make us wet ourselves with excitement.
2012 has been a year rife with films just like this, be it one film trying to out superhero the other, another trying to out franchise the other or another reboot trying to make audiences cry more than others: we’ve had plenty of films with promises that aren’t fulfilled. Lucky for the disillusioned, Looper appeared as if from thin air to meet every expectation we were promised, and then some.
Looper was pitched as an intelligent sci-fi that would stamp Rian Johnson into the minds of mainstream cinema goers, compete with The Matrix and make us all forget that Bruce Willis was in Sin City; here’s how it managed to meet this exceptional billing and how other films failed to.
1. The Premise
There’s one of these films every year, an intelligent, high budget blockbuster that is billed as the next Matrix. What we often get is something that doesn’t deliver on the intelligence; or something that gets so lost in its own premise it becomes ponderous and dull… Or it’s The Matrix Revolutions.
This film’s premise is both intriguing and intelligent without doing the indulgent dance around its own concept that some films rejoice in doing (i.e. Inception), this keeps it smart and edgy whilst also no stretch to understand if you have an IQ greater than 13. It shirks an over thinking of time travel rules for a quicker paced, character driven tale that its premise enhances, but doesn’t overawe.
Where other films premises fail, this one presents its twist, its edge and uses what that gives the world to help drive its characters.
Where Other 2012 Films Failed:
The Avengers: Central premise was Mark Ruffalo and Robert Downey Jr. saying nonsensical rubbish and the odd joke until an army showed up for the typical New York destruction scene. Thought it was a lot more intelligent and funny than it actually was.
The Dark Knight Rises: Taking money from the corrupt upper classes to benefit the poor? Sounds like the personal agenda of a 17 year old who read The Guardian once. Was too dreary and preoccupied with piggy backing on the occupy Wall Street movement for the first hour before it kicked in for the final hour and a half.
Prometheus: Committed the sin of finding itself more interesting than it made itself look to other people. Premise was interesting, execution was sloppy.
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4 Comments
The Looper I saw was far from intelligent. It completely ignored any explanation of the rules of its premise opting instead to have Bruce Willis basically tell the audience that it is too complex for them to spend their time thinking about it – just accept the premise without explanation. As a result, it had a myriad of plot holes that lesser films of the same ilk (Timecop) handled much better. Both the Avengers and Dark Knight Rises were at least as intelligent if not moreso than Looper, especially the Dark Knight Rises.
In what way is Looper original? Forget the obvious Terminator comparisons I will just use Timecop as an example …1) In both movies time travel is illegal; 2) time travel is used to kill people to enforce the rules surrounding its use (the Loopers in that movie and criminals who break time traveling laws in Timecop; 3) an older version of a main character goes back in time to alter it (Bruce Willis in Looper, Ron Silver Timecop); 4) in the end, the plot is resolved by the one of the versions of the time traveler killing himself; 5) the future is changed for the better avoiding a tragedy (the rise of the Rainmaker in Looper and the death of Jean Claude Van Dammes wife and takeover of the time travel by Ron Silver’s character).
While Looper provided a great showcase of actors it is far from the masterpiece you make it out to be. I found the Noah Sagan (Kid Blue) character to be overacted a bit; the child Pierce Gagnon was not convincing the way he lurched from one emotional state to the other with very little build as to why. When it comes to acting, Looper loses in that respect to the Dark Knight Rises.
The execution was good not great. The movie meandered for quite a bit once young Joe got on the farm. The end of the movie was anticlimactic and confusing leaving the audience to try to piece together the consequences of young Joe’s actions since the movie utterly failed to explain the basic logic behind it or even what it meant for the future. I don’t know anyone who is touting this movie as the best of the year thus far unless they are paid by studio to over-hype the movie.
Wow. Way to completely misread the entire movie.
To be clear from the get-go, I don’t really agree with this writer on numerous fronts, especially his relentless bashing of TDKR, and to a lesser degree, Avengers and Prometheus. I loved all three of those movies, and I’m especially tired of hearing about “plot holes” in TDKR, but make no mistake, Looper is the best movie of the year so far. (I haven’t seen The Master yet though…) Also, to directly address your comment, I’m not being paid by anyone for my opinion. It’s mine, and it’s correct.
I could pick apart your ridiculously long comment, piece by piece, but it’s not really worth my effort, other than to point out that your reading of the child actor who played Cyd was way off base. I haven’t seen such a terrific, real, performance from a child that young in quite a long time. What you refer to about lurching from one emotional state to another made no sense – it’s almost like you’ve never seen a small child before, or forgot what it was like to be one. Again, you’re way off.
The one thing that ensures it’s not the best film of 2012:
It’s many many plot holes.
Wow this article felt like more of an excuse for you to bash The Avengers and TDKR