peteg's blog - noise - movies - 2012 10 02 Looper

Looper

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At The Ritz at 6:30pm on an authetically cheap Tuesday. Joseph Gordon-Levitt in another Rian Johnson effort. Not quite the Brick II I had hoped for, but solid just the same, at least if you don't question the dodgy scaffolding of the plot and go along with the narrational but not logical necessity of the money shot. I guess Johnson doesn't see the need for nuance when talking about pernicious single- (or no-) parent homes and time travel. (There is far too much exposition in this film.) Strangely the year is 2042, just short of Wong Kar-Wai's 2046, and things are more similar to 2012 here than there. As futurology this is all pretty depressing.

Bruce Willis is unfortunately typecast as a one-man army, a let-down post Pulp Fiction, though somewhat reminiscent of The Sixth Sense. Emily Blunt and Jeff Daniels are quite good, and Pierce Gagnon as ten-year-old Cid evokes Ian McKellen. All actors spend a lot of time waggling eyebrows, sometimes while toting firearms. I think every scene has a gun in it. Noah Segan, the weaselly Dode in Brick, returns as a no-left-feet hitman who (post-ironically) rains death on all.

Dana Stevens is roughly on the money. I've started reading the New York Times movie reviews and expect them to be about as dodgy as their book reviews.