Older Joe: I'm going to stop this guy.
Joe: None of this concerns me...
Older Joe: It is going to happen to you!
Joe: It's going to happen to YOU, it's not going to happen to ME!

Looper is a movie about time travel released in late September which usually means, a flat out failed attempt. However I have to say I was impressed with this film. Rian Johnson gives us a carefully written and impressive piece of work here.

The movie takes place in the year 2044 when time travel has been invented and completely illegal-ised. The only people who use it are the mob who sends people called loopers back in time to eliminate people the mob wants dead, therefore wiping them out from existence.

Our protagonist is one of these loopers named Joe, played brilliantly by Joseph Gordon Levitt. He stands out in the middle of a desert holding his giant shot gun made for loopers, and waits for some guy tied up with a white sheet over their head to appear right in front of him so that he can shoot them dead. One day an older version of Joe's self (Bruce Willis) from the year 2072 appears with no white cloth over his head. Old Joe punches Young Joe and gets away. Thankfully right from there, the movie doesn't turn into a simple chase movie or anything of that nature. Instead, Rian Johnson gives us a great taste of an original concept. The charm from Looper is all from the script. Also, the actors tie everything together nicely with some great performances.

I felt like the character of Joe should have had more of a personality so I could follow him along easier, but Looper manages to still play off effectively.

The question I have after seeing this movie is this: We all know that in the logic of this film, if you are from the future and you kill somebody from the past then that person will be erased from existence. Well, what if a person from the past kills somebody from the future? And what it this person is their future self? Are they erased from existence anyway? In other words: If young Joe kills old Joe what would happen? The movie does touch on these types of things quite a bit and even shows different time dimensions in which different things happen.

Abe: This time travel crap, just fries your brain like a egg...

Something I think most people will pick up on is how brilliantly Levitt's performance is. He acts like Bruce Willis. He also makes all the same facial expressions as Bruce Willis. He puts his cheek in his tongue, he looks at things out one eye, etcetera. They even had him wear make up to make him look more like Bruce. He didn't quite look like John McClaine in 1988 but it was still cool.

The characters here don't like to talk about confusing events that time travel can generate. This is good because it seems like something real people would do if in this situation. In fact, the whole movie feels like a fairly realistic take on a future with time travel. The cities in 2044 look a tiny bit different than they do now, but not very much.

Overall, here is an original sci-fi that is intelligent and tries it's best it can be. Despite my issues with it, this is fanatically impressive.

Sara: You're going to kill this guy? Your own self?