I sit in the passenger seat on the way to the movies, a weird experience in itself – not the sitting in a passenger seat – I’m used to that – but the actually going to the movies thing. I ask, “Driver, what is this fi-lm about?” My driver says, “Stop calling me Driver, I’m your friend Tom and it’s about time travel.” I exhale. Fuck me. This isn’t what I signed up for… I didn’t sign up for anything! I heard “Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis” and I accepted an invitation to mõvié – that’s made-up French for “Watch a movie.”
You see, time travel movies do my head in. The whole space-time continuum messes with my brain tank. It takes a hammer to my brain tank, smashes the glass, and my brain goldfishes named ‘Understanding’, ‘Reason’ and ‘Sense’ fall to the floor and flap about. Eventually they die, gasping for air, their eyes popping as wide as their mouths. Graphic right? I apologise; the space-time continuum made me do it.
Anyway, back to the blockbuster. Gordon-Levitt stars, but you mightn’t recognise him unless you read his name on the movie poster. Why the confusion? Well, because he looks weird as fuck, but not little-boy-weird as in 10 Things I Hate About You or cancer-gross-weird as in 50-50. He wears a prosthetic nosepiece throughout to make him look like his future-self in the movie, Bruce Willis. Future-what you say?
Premise: The movie posits that in the future time travel is possible but highly illegal. In 30 years’ time, when the ‘mob’ wants to kill someone, they send that person back in time and a Looper ‘disposes’ of them, doing so with an awesome-but-sickening gun.
The Catch: When a Looper is ‘retired’ in the future, he is sent back to the past and the present Looper has to kill his future self. It’s fucked up, I know. So when Gordon-Levitt’s character has his loop closed, his future self (Bruce Willis) is sent back and essentially, he has to kill himself…well, his future self…it’s a bit confusing.
The Twist: Bruce Willis’ character has other plans and shit gets complicated.
Conclusion: It’s graphic, it’s violent, it’s violently graphic, there are boobies, there’s a little lovey-dovey and there’s a fuck load of swearing. It’s part-science fiction and part-action and that’s partly the reason I liked it. The other part is Gordon-Levitt. He nailed his role, as is tradition. But then again, I could just have a man-crush.
Grade: 78 – Distinction.
Best Part: Blunderbuss – the badass weapon used in the film.
Worst Part: Bruce Willis crying.
Offspring: If Inception and Children of Men had a baby.
Moral of the story: It takes a lot of work to make Gordon-Levitt look like Bruce Willis, but it doesn’t take anything to make Emily Blunt look like an absolute babe…probably because she is an absolute babe.
