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The Rogerer
May 31st, 2013, 11:10 AM
A bit late, but we're all about thread creation.

I watched this last weekend, and decided to make a thread when I caught myself wanting to watch it again. I had put it off for a long time - suspicious of Bruce Willis sci-fi (namely Surrogates and anything else he's been in lately), the possibility of an Inception cash-in, the memory of Source Code leaving me cold (star-led time travel).

It turned out to be very good. I think this is an excellent example of a sci-fi blockbuster. The original conceit is actively ridiculous, but the film goes about establishing it's rules - how the loopers work, how the logic of time travel works, while developing the characters, and then you have a set of rules that doesn't get in the way while you allow the actors to get on with it for the remainder of the film as a series of people who don't trust each other. They also achieved the very difficult accolade of getting a convincing child character and actor.

I especially like how the ending came to a head - it made sense under the technicalities that the film had set up, and also brought the emotional core of the film to a climax that you were waiting for after the decadence of the Loopers' lives at the start.

In true fashion I'd like to end with my complaints. Three is a pretty small list:

1. The premise was already silly enough, but I went along for the ride. I could have done without them shitting on it with the killing of Willis' wife. It's really hard to kill people in the future because of CHIPS, but not this time.
2. I rolled my eyes a bit at the stripper girlfriend at the start, as it feels like a cheap cinema trick/trailer fodder, but then it did match the exploitative life of the Loopers, so it's okay.
3. Main complaint of a cinematic trend. The audience can accept actors not looking the same, hence every other film and television show with family members of people who don't look like each other. I assure you no-one would care how much JGL looks like Bruce Willis, but instead I couldn't tear my eyes off those LazyTown eyebrows. Stop it.

VHS
May 31st, 2013, 12:55 PM
The kid in this movie was the best actor, and that's not a criticism against JGL or Bruce Willis. He's genuinely freaky and convincing with the part he play. He's that good.

Mik
June 13th, 2013, 6:40 AM
See I thought the other way. I thought that at the right times JGL looked incredibly like Bruce Willis and that the prosthetics were amazing.

I thought that much of the angle with the kid was a waste. Started off like a dystopian sci fi film and then turned into The Omen and I preferred it as it was before.

Beer-Belly
June 13th, 2013, 12:49 PM
I thought that much of the angle with the kid was a waste. Started off like a dystopian sci fi film and then turned into The Omen and I preferred it as it was before.Yeah, the turn into a creepy psychic kid movie was one of the more head scratching plot shifts in recent memory. It was hard to focus on the film after it went in that direction.