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James Mottram of Total Film gave Looper 5 stars out of 5, concluding that it was "the best sci-fi movie since Moon. The best time-travel yarn since 12 Monkeys. And one of the best films of 2012."

Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter gave the film a positive review, calling it "an engaging, neatly worked-out time-travel sci-fi thriller."

But also criticizing the effects involved in making Gordon-Levitt resemble Willis: "At first, the effect is a bit odd, and you can't quite put your finger on what's off.

Then it feels downright weird to be looking at a version of Gordon-Levitt who is no longer the actor you've known for a few years now."


Peter Debruge of Variety also gave the film a positive review, writing that writer-director Johnson's "grandly conceived, impressively mounted third feature shows a giddy, geeky interest in science-fiction, then forces it into the back seat and lets the multidimensional characters drive.

In a genre infamous for loose ends, this thinking man's thriller marshals action, romance and a dose of very dark comedy toward a stunning payoff."


Kim Newman of Empire magazine gave Looper 5 stars out of 5, writing, "Intelligent science-fiction sometimes seems an endangered species.

Too much physics and there's a risk of creating something cold and remote, too many explosions and get lost in the multiplex. Looper isn't perfect, but it pulls off the full Wizard Of Oz: it has a brain, courage and a heart."

Noel Murray of The A.V. Club gave the film an A- grade, writing, "Looper is a remarkable feat of imagination and execution, entertaining from start to finish, even as it asks the audience to contemplate how and why humanity keeps making the same rotten mistakes."

Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times gave the film a positive review, writing, "Looper is way inventive but it wears its creativity lightly, like it's no big deal.


This is a highflying, super-stylish science-fiction thriller that brings a fresh approach to mind-bending genre material. We're not always sure where this time-travel film is going, but we wouldn't dream of abandoning the ride."

Claudia Puig of USA Today gave the film 3.5 stars out of 4, writing, "Looper's heady blend of time travel, gritty action and a jot of romance is a thrilling and cerebral mind-bender.

It will likely have moviegoers gathering outside the theater afterward to hash out details of its intricately constructed universe. Not that that's a bad thing."


Peter Travers of Rolling Stone also gave the film 3.5 stars out of 4, praising the performances of Willis and Gordon-Levitt and concluding, "Lacing tremendously exciting action with touching gravity, Looper hits you like a shot in the heart."

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times also gave the film 3.5 stars out of 4, praising its screenplay and writing, "Looper, a smart and tricky sci-fi story, sidesteps the paradoxes of time travel by embracing them.

Most time travel movies run into trouble in the final scenes, when impossibilities pile up one upon another. This film leads to a startling conclusion that wipes out the story's paradoxes so neatly it's as if it never happened."


Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a B+ grade, writing, "The time swivels in Looper evoke some of Inception's fancy temporal tricks (some of which, of course, also involved Gordon-Levitt straddling multiple time zones at once).

But it's the glimpses of Children of Men-like societal dystopia that give the movie its real weight".


Keith Staskiewicz, also writing for Entertainment Weekly (reviewing the DVD) and also giving a "B+", said, "The film's premise is markedly inventive, and [writer-director Rian] Johnson spends a lot of time making his universe seem lived-in and believable.

but he's not just concerned with whiz-bang what-ifs. The showdown of selves illuminates just how little Gordon-Levitt's character has changed over the intervening years, stuck as he is in a feedback loop of drug use and violence despite his pipe dream of moving to Europe.


The retro trench coats and firearms also suggest a sort of eternal recurrence, and as Looper's plot gets more complex, its central question simplifies: If we can't fix our mistakes, can we at least make sure we don't repeat the same ones over and over again?"

Richard Corliss of Time magazine gave the film a positive review, calling Looper a "hybrid, mashing Quentin Tarantino and Philip K. Dick into a species of pulp science fiction" and also writing:

"A fanciful film with the patina of hyper-realism, Looper is well served by actors who behave not as if they were dropped carelessly into the future but spent their whole desperate lives there."


Dana Stevens of Slate gave the film a mixed review, writing, "Looper felt to me like a maddening near-miss.

It posits an impossible but fascinating-to-imagine relationship – a face-to-face encounter between one's present and future self, in which each self must account for its betrayal of the other – and then throws away nearly all the dramatic potential that relationship offers."

Audiences polled by the market research firm CinemaScore gave the film a B+ grade on average.


Awards Won:

Vits Award for Best Movie, Best Actor, & Best Script
Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Sci-Fi/Horror Movie

For Best Screenplay:
National Board of Review
Washington D.C. Area Film
Critics Association Award
Las Vegas Film Critics Society Award
Austin Film Critics Association
Florida Film Critics Circle


Awards Nominated:

Hugo Award for
Best Dramatic Presentation
Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film, Best Director, Best Editing
Vits Award for Best Directing
Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Action Film

For Acting:
Saturn Award - Actor
Chicago Film Critics Association Award - Supporting Actress
Broadcast Film Critics Association Award - Actress, Actor
Vits Award - Actress, Actor

For Best Screenplay:
Houston Film Critics Society
Online Film Critics Society
Utah Film Critics Association
Broadcast Film Critics Association Award
Chicago Film Critics Association Award
Writers Guild of America Award



Excerpts and References:
wikipedia.org, imdb.com






Detailed Synopsis & Screenshots


We see the previous events unfold, and watch Old Joe escape in Joe's truck. He buys all the first aid supplies he can find, and heads to Joe's apartment. Old Joe sees Young Joe fall from the balcony and land on a car. He rescues him, and disappears again.


Old Joe looks up some cryptic numbers at the library, when letters begin to form on his hand and arm spelling out "Beatrix". Old Joe meets Young Joe at the diner. They order identical meals. Old Joe asks Joe how his French lessons are going, then says in French: "I know you have a gun under the table pointed at me."


When Young Joe doesn't understand, Old Joe says "It's okay that you didn't get all that. You will. Even though you don't get to France, I'm still glad I learned the language." The Joes confirm with each other that the Rainmaker is killing off the loopers, and Old Joe tells Joe that he also killed his wife when Old Joe was abducted. If Old Joe can kill the Rainmaker, then he never would be captured, and his wife would still be alive.


All that is known about the Rainmaker is that he works alone, he has a plastic jaw, and he watched his mother as she was killed.


They tussle when Old Joe realizes that Young Joe still plans to kill him. The Joes notice that the diner has cleared out. Staff and customers have disappeared. Suddenly, the Gat Men burst in. Old Joe gives Joe a piece of a map with an address marked and a string of digits, and tells him that the Rainmaker may live there.


Young Joe and the Gat Men shoot at Old Joe as he runs off. Then the Gat Men start shooting at Young Joe, who also runs off. Young Joe follows the coordinates to a farmhouse owned by Sara (Blunt), who lives with her son Cid (Gagnon). When Joe shows Sara the map, Sara recognizes the digits as Cid's birthday and the serial number of the hospital where he was born, prompting Young Joe to explain the situation about the Rainmaker.


The database Old Joe used with the string of digits produced three possible children born on the same day in the same hospital, and he is intent on killing them. Sara tells Cid to stay away from Joe, but Cid is curious. He befriends Joe, and shows him some of the electronics gear he is playing with. Joe is very impressed with the advanced work the five-year-old is doing.


Old Joe tracks down one of the potential Rainmaker children heading to a birthday party. He kills him, but when he realizes he is still existing in his past, he breaks down crying. He has killed the wrong child. He then heads to the other child's place, but is hesitant when he realizes it is where his girlfriend, Suzie, from 30 years earlier is living with her son.


Instead of killing the child right away, he watches their apartment. As Young Joe and Sara become close, he learns that she is a telekinetic with slightly more power than the other TKs, and that Cid was raised by Sara's sister for two years until she was somehow killed. Cid thinks Sara's sister was his mother, and does not believe that Sara is his real mother.


The next day, one of the Gat Men, Jesse (Dillahunt), comes looking for Joe. Cid helps him escape, and Jesse leaves. While Cid and Joe are alone hiding from Jesse, Joe tells him how his own mother gave him to The Panhandlers, so that he grew up without her, a moment later saying that she sold him and that she used drugs.


We see how being motherless led Joe to become a killer and a drug user. Although he left, Jesse is suspicious, and returns. This startles Cid, who falls down the stairs and lets out a telekinetic blast, killing Jesse. Jesse's blood "rains" out of his chest, implying that is why the Rainmaker has that nickname.


Cid's extraordinary telekinetic abilities confirm to Joe that Cid is the Rainmaker, and that Sara's sister was killed by Cid when he lost control of his powers. Joe finds Cid crying outside the house, and comforts him. Joe realizes that this boy needs love, and may not turn into the Rainmaker if he is raised in a loving home.


Meanwhile, Kid Blue has tracked Old Joe to the apartment he was watching, and captures him when he breaks inside to kill the child. Young Joe tells Sara and Cid to flee, surmising that his employers and/or Old Joe will target the farm. Old Joe breaks free, killing Abe and all the Gat Men except for Kid Blue, who is shot in the foot.


As the two Joes confront each other near Sara's house, Kid Blue attacks and is killed by Young Joe. Sara and Cid attempt to drive away, but Old Joe starts shooting at their truck. Cid wants Sara to stop the truck so they don't come closer and when she won't he uses his TK powers to cause the truck to flip.


He and Sara attempt to run to the sugar cane field to hide. Old Joe attempts to shoot them and the bullet grazes Cid's cheek. Cid gets angry and uses a blast of his TK powers to suspend Sara and Old Joe in the air. Joe has been following after Old Joe in his truck, which is knocked over by the TK blast.


Sara calms Cid, telling him that she is his mother, and she loves him. Cid lowers Sara and Old Joe, but Old Joe grabs his gun, ready to shoot Cid. Sara stands in front of Cid preventing him from shooting. Old Joe shoots Sara through the heart. Cid sees his mother die, then escapes through the sugar canes and onto a slowly passing freight train.


Flashback to a moment before the shot was fired: Young Joe understands that by shooting Sara and wounding Cid, Old Joe creates the embittered child who will become the Rainmaker without his mother's love and also realizes that even by killing Old Joe the loop will not be closed and Old Joe will keep coming back, so Young Joe turns his gun on himself.


He pulls the trigger and dies, thus closing the loop circuit from his end. Almost instantly, Old Joe disappears. Sara lovingly puts Cid to bed after bandaging up the cut on his face caused by Old Joe's shot.


Sara then goes back out to the sugar field and notices that the truck is filled with gold bars, which Old Joe must have stolen from the mafia. They will be well provided for. She walks over to Young Joe's body lying in the field, and takes a moment to stroke his hair, something that he had confided to Suzie that his own mother used to do for him.



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Time Travel Main

12 Monkeys

Donnie Darko

The Time Machine

Déjà Vu

Source Code

Looper

Tomorrowland


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