Looper [DVD] [2017]

Looper is a high concept science fiction/crime drama, which arrives on the back of some great reviews proclaiming it to be genuinely original and pretty special.With films that come along with that kind of baggage, it's often best to just judge them for yourself.So you may wish to stop reading and go and buy the dvd.Want to know more first? Alright then...Time travel doesn't exist. Yet. But thirty years from now [or from the near future date when the film is set] it will. But it will be controlled by organised crime. Who will use it to make their enemies disappear. On a one way trip back to the past. Where they are shot by special hitmen. Called Loopers. The mob has people back in the past - as it were - to control all this. Loopers are handsomely paid. In silver. And may be required to kill their future selves. This is known as closing the loop. It's not a job for those who think long term.Joe [Joseph Gordon-Levitt] is a looper. And he does think long term. He's planning to get out of the job and run off abroad with his lady love. But when his next target is his future self [Bruce Willis], and said future Joe gets away and has plans of his own, Joe has problems to deal with.Everything leads him to a remote farmhouse. And the woman [Emily Blunt] and the strange boy who live there. None of their lives will ever be the same again...There's a lot of exposition there to set the whole thing up. Which is a little bit of a problem with the opening. It does take a while for you to get used to the style of the film and take in all the exposition, and get used to the style of the movie as well. Even when you do get into it there are long moments of character drama that some will find engrossing, but may not appeal to all.The setting is, as mentioned, near future, and the look of the whole thing is nicely done. Most things are recognisable, but certain things such as the guns and the motorbikes [or hoverbikes, as they are] are recognisably different.Joseph Gordon-Levitt wears some prosthetics to make him look like a younger Bruce Willis. This works pretty well. The fact that the two Joes can't stand each other adds nice character drama. Emily Blunt is very good in a role that is totally different to anything she's ever done before, with a very different accent to usual as well. The child actor playing the boy is exceptional.Looper, being all about time travel, does thus bring up a lot of questions and possible plot holes about the whole thing might work. Perhaps the best approach to this is to go with the advice Basil Exposition offered in Austin Powers two; 'Just try not to worry about any of that.' That way you'll be fine. Sometimes suspension of disbelief helps.It's loaded with various metaphors and uses the scenario as a way to make it's audience think about things such as destiny. It's violent but never gratuitious or too bloody [thus it's a 15 rather than an 18] and it's the kind of film you can watch again and discover new things when you do.It's a clever and original piece of film making, and one that is worth a watch. But what you think of it ultimately is going to be a matter of opinion. Perhaps I would have gone up to five stars if I'd gone into it without having read any of the five star reviews that various critics gave it. But I didn't. Even so, it's definitely worth four stars, and definitely worth trying.And the lenticular cover on the dvd box is pretty cool.The disc has the following language and subtitle options:Languages: English.Subtitles: English.It opens with several trailers, but you can skip these via the next or the menu buttons on the dvd remote.Extras are:Commentary on the film from writer/director Rian Johnson, plus stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Emily Blunt.A seven minute long making of feature. Which is cursory but okay for what it is.Scoring Looper: three five minute long previews of sections of the score that the composer of it posted online before the movie coming out. These can only be watched all in a row rather than individually. But will appeal to the musically minded because of the details he goes into about how certain parts were created.An animated trailer for the film. This is completely different to the original cinema trailer. It runs for a minute. It is stylish and eye catching and contains flashing images so epileptics beware.Plus four deleted scenes, that can be watched individually or all in a row. If you do the latter they run for nine minutes in total. They can also be watched with a commentary from Rian Johnson and one of the supporting cast.

A full in-depth review of Looper will hopefully be available soon on my own film and TV review site (link in my Amazon profile!)One of the more high-profile films of 2012 (especially more independent films), apart from the leading duo and the time travel aspect, I didn't know much about Looper before watching it. I was surprised by how much this reminded me of a Christopher Nolan film. With a cool colour palette, a main character dealing with the loss of his wife, time jumps, paradoxes etc., there's a fair bit of resemblance. There's a lot of interesting ideas at play in Looper, and it has a great couple of leads in Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis. The screenplay is so jammed with ideas in fact, that at times it can be a detriment. There are a few areas which feel undercooked as a result. I wasn't completely invested in Joe dealing with the death of his wife, simply because we only get one brief flashback of the two together. There's not enough of an established relationship around which to centre the character's primary motivation of revenge. It's telling that his wife is never even given a name and is credited as … Joe's Wife. This isn't to say I didn't enjoy Looper however. It's an ambitious, yet low-key sci-fi movie - it's enjoyable and definitely worth checking out.

I've seen so many films now, half of them I manage to turn off around the half hour mark. Sometimes I think I've seen every different monster and every different car chase. Then something like Looper comes along and restores my faith in Hollywood.It's about time travel. Therefore you can look up on the internet message boards threads about the major plot holes with the mechanics of time travel in general. They use words like `paradox' and things like that. Basically, they're saying that the movie doesn't work scientifically. Well, if put to the test, it probably doesn't. But then nor does any time travel movie. So, if you can suspend your disbelief and like some slick sci-fi action, you should enjoy this.In the future, they time travel. And those crafty futuristic criminals are only sending their `hit' victims back in time to be executed and disposed of (by assassins called `Loopers'). This prevents the future authorities from ever linking the future criminals to their murders. Clever, huh? Well, nearly. Because Joseph Gordon-Levitt is one of those Loopers and his `victim' sent back in time for him to neatly kill and dispose of, is only him! Or rather Bruce Willis, who is apparently what Joseph Gordon-Levitt will look like in about forty years time. But, Bruce Willis has no intention of just taking the traditional bullet to the head. He has his own agenda. And it involves escape and killing many people along the way. Why? You'll have to watch the film to find out.It's well written. Special acting points to Joseph Gordon-Levitt for mimicking all of Bruce's little quirks and mannerisms in order to portray his younger incarnation. Plus full marks for finding a really dark and menacing kid who flits between sweet and psychotic (I think this is how young Anakin Skywalker should have been cast in Episode I, but never mind - too late now).Basically, Looper is a lot of well-written, well-performed mind-bending time travelling fun. Yes, it may have some plot holes if you really want to dig deep enough, but there's so much good here, it well and truly overshadows the bad.