10 Sci-Fi Movies That Had No Right To Be This Good

While it may seem harsh, many fans assume that Bruce Willis starring in anything that isn't Die Hard is going to be disastrous.

While the actor garnered acclaim for his roles in Die Hard and The Sixth Sense - in addition to a successful sci-fi turn in 1997's The Fifth Element - it's safe to say that Willis' more modern outings have not gone according to plan. Before his tragic retirement due to aphasia, Willis was nominated for multiple Razzie Awards in films that, more often than not, boast a Rotten Tomatoes percentage in the single digits. Only one of his performances post-2019 was not of the straight-to-DVD variety.

As such, the actor's contribution to 2012's Looper instantly breaks the status quo. Looper was critically acclaimed, with particular praise bestowed upon Willis and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (who portrays the younger version of Willis' time-traveling assassin) as well as the film's ability to blend beloved sci-tropes with intensely gripping action sequences. Looper is utterly grounded - the film's characters (and the scenes in which they appear) are hyper-realistic in their unflinching grittiness, while simultaneously possessing an intelligent story capable of invoking emotion from even the most grizzled of action-movie buffs.

Indeed, Looper may hold the honour of being action icon Willis' last notable outing of quality, a film in which he demonstrated all the predilections that made him such a mainstay of the genre to begin with.