Saturday 3 November 2012

Looper

I wasn't too sure what to expect with Looper initially. However, with the trailer depicting it as a part action drama, part sci-fi thriller, I was looking forward to seeing if it would live up to the hype. It also didn't hurt that the lovely Joseph Gordon-Levitt featured.

The premise of the film is that in the year 2072, time travel has been invented but is so illegal, it is controlled only by a select group. Time travel is used as a way of erasing individuals from the future-transporting them to the past and using assassins known as loopers, to kill them and dispose of the bodies. Things get tricky when Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character) meets his future self who escapes from his grasp and creates problems along the way.

The film itself begins brilliantly, creating an imagined future world where lucky individuals possess telekinetic powers and time travel is controlled by a gangster-style mob. It becomes even more interesting when Emily Blunt's character is introduced- a young, fiery woman with a young boy who refuses to call her his mother. The secrets surrounding this relationship are part of the most enticing part of the film, although this is also where the film falls down.

The later half of the film is much less believable than the first and some of the scenes involving the little boy were superficial and badly directed, leaving the audience laughing at some of the dialogue. As the plot moves on, the continuity becomes fractured slightly which is off-putting.

All in all, however, a film that gives you a lot of food for thought and has enough twists and turns to keep you watching and guessing the ending. Very watchable, but perhaps not to be taken too seriously. Not the film of the year, but a good Saturday night action film.