Looper Review: Loopy

The time travel genre is nothing new to movies. It's been done brilliantly (The Terminator/Back to the Future/12 Monkeys) and not so well (Timeline/Freejack/Time After Time). Even still, it's a story arc that offers so much potential for imaginative plots, filmmakers continue to come back to it again and again. Which is fine, providing it's done with some panache. Looper is yet another addition to that long traveled path to the time travel well and with a cool sounding premise, promises the same kind of dizzying concepts and brain muddling story arcs. At least that's what you expect. That it falls a bit short is really a surprise. And a shame.

Upon release, critics were literally creaming themselves and foaming at the mouth over this movie. There simply wasn't enough descriptive expletives in the dictionary to summarize how amazing this movie was meant to be. It was also not uncommon to hear it being compared with such esteemed company as The Matrix and Inception. While it's not as good as the former, and not as clever as the latter, it's still an okay – if unremarkable - watch. Basically, take one-third Terminator, add a touch of 12 Monkeys and mix in some Carrie, and the result is Looper. And if that sounds a bit on the loopy side, that's because it is. 



In the future, there is time travel, but as it's banned, the only people using it are criminals. They send back ex-colleagues and other targets to be executed in the past by 'Loopers' – specialist executioners who incinerate the future garbage. Literally. So when a Looper called 'Joe' (Gordon Levitt – in makeup) gets his latest victim, he's in for a huge shock when he discovers it's… himself. Or rather an older version of himself (Bruce Willis). And so begins a sometimes interesting, though occasionally confusing chase/hunt as the younger Joe tries to zero in on his older self.

On the plus side, this has lots of really good ideas and interesting concepts in it: the younger version of Joe can send messages to his older self by cutting his instructions in his flesh; memories are simultaneously created and rendered vague by the actions of the younger iteration; and in one scene another older Looper - who escaped death earlier - starts to literally fall apart as his younger version systematically loses limbs though surgery performed by the bad guys who are financing all the Loopers. It's a scene that is slightly reminiscent of the Black Knight's demise in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, though much more grueling and shocking. Also, the makeup on Gordon Levitt is quite subtle and very effective: you actually believe both him and Bruce are the same person, albeit from different places in time. The future world looks unique enough without being completely alien and unfamiliar to us. So where does it all go wrong? About half way through…

For a movie with such an intriguing premise, promising every manner of head spinning older assassin against his younger self interactions, along with the customary shootouts and all the ensuing paradoxes resulting from traveling through time, this takes an abrupt turn that is so left-field you'll feel you stumbled into a different movie… It's almost like writer-director Rian Johnson ran out of plot after breezing through the first half and said: "Where else can I take this… I know: a farm where … etc" This sudden turn is so out of sync, as to feel it doesn't belong in this movie. The clue is in one of the movie references mentioned above. It is a shame because it's fifty-per cent a very good movie.

The cast are very good too: Gordon Levitt doe a really good job as a younger Bruce, while Bruce himself starts off sympathetic but gradually changes into something that is both ruthless and quite monstrous. Emily Blunt also does good work as gun-toting farm owner. So if they're all that good, then where does this go wrong? Obviously, this movie probably looked brilliant on paper, but after execution, is decidedly lacking. What you're expecting is not what you get – and not necessarily in a good way. You think you're going to get something dazzling - something with the intricacies of the brilliant Spanish time travel movie Timecrimes; but what you actually get – at least for half of it - could easily be a standalone, and pretty pedestrian horror movie. Again, you wonder: why wasn't somebody standing at Johnson's typewriter with a cattle prod, telling him to come up with something better?

There's a lot of inconsistencies too: without being overly specific, stuff is done in this movie that makes no sense when you think about it after wards (heck, even the central premise makes no sense – surely the criminals would be using time travel for something more ambitious than to just bump people off?). Also, there is a central antagonist that is meant to play such a huge part in ruining older Joe's life, older Joe wants to hunt him down; yet we never actually get around to meeting this evil doer, only a different, more vulnerable version of him.

Inconsistencies aside, you're left with a movie that somehow misses the mark despite the groundwork being laid for something really special. It's not as action packed and visionary as The Matrix, and not as clever as Inception. Maybe it's the type of movie that could get better on a re-watch – i.e., once you're familiar with the direction it ends up going, it might actually be possible to end up liking it for what it is – but as a first time viewing, the movie falls a bit flat and that's entirely a legacy of the final half. Want some advice? Go watch Timecrimes instead.

Combine the attitude/violence of Robocop with the cityscapes of Bladerunner and you've got DREDD

It's surprising that for an iconic comic book legend like Judge Dredd, a tent-pole character in the equally iconic 2000AD comic - which itself has been around since the 1970s - there's been just one movie adaptation: a 1995 vehicle starring Sylvester Stallone, where he famously removed the sacred helmet of the character (a strict no-no in the comic) and spent most of the movie's running time as a fleeing fugitive rather than as a 'Judge' out in Mega City One dispensing brutal justice. It was a flop at the time, not in the least bit helped by someone as famous and larger than life as Stallone playing an equally famous and larger than life character like Judge Dredd.

I've always thought that Judge Dredd had already been partially done in two movies that got the tone exactly right: Robocop (1987) - for the violent view of a dirty, decayed future, the satirical tone, and the colorful and cynical bad guys; and Bladerunner (1982) - for the huge, expansive vistas of a futuristic, but somehow rundown and crowded cities. If these two movies were blended together, you'd have the right cinematic representation of Judge Dredd. While the Karl Urban movie comes CLOSE, it somehow misses the target - for the reasons discussed below. Having said that, it's still a superior adaptation of the comic compared to its predecessor Judge Dredd (1995) directed by Danny Cannon. Yes, while that movie, got it right in some places - the vision of Mega City One, the Angel Gang, etc, it got it WRONG on so many other levels.

The good news is that Dredd 3D is a massive improvement over the Stallone version. Firstly, Karl Urban makes for a more effective and menacing Dredd. Secondly, the helmet stays ON for the movie's entire running time – a rarity in today's world of celebrity egos that an actor would actually agree to that. The story is way better too: Dredd and a rookie Judge called 'Anderson' are called to a tower block where three people have been skinned alive and thrown to their deaths. Unbeknownst to Dredd and Anderson, this block is run by a major crime lord - 'Ma-ma'(seriously) – who's manufacturing a drug called 'Slo-Mo' there – a narcotic that slows down time for the user. After Dredd and Anderson arrest one of her perps, Ma-ma opts to shut down the entire building rather than letting Dredd and Anderson leave with her stooge, effectively making them prisoners in the block and forcing them to shoot/fight/blow their way out of this hell hole.

Although this is meant to be a review of Dredd 3D, it's almost impossible to resist comparing it to the Stallone movie. As mentioned above, Karl Urban is great as the eponymous Dredd and puts in a better interpretation of the character than the Stallone iteration. Witness the delivery of Dredd's iconic and immortal line: whereas in the 1995 release Stallone shouted: "I am… (pause) The Law!"; in this version, Urban growls it more effectively: "I am the Law!". Also, in the comics, Dredd sometimes almost came across as being a futuristic Dirty Harry – a fact lost in the 1995 movie, but corrected in this version: here we see Dredd throw people to their deaths/execute/head butt/punch his way out of danger. In essence, it's everything you would expect from the classic comic icon and a lot of that is thanks to Urban's steely portrayal.

It may be dark and murky, but it's still a very stylish (and stylized) movie. The effects of the Slo-Mo drug are stylistically rendered, with everything happening at a fraction of the speed of reality. As a comic book adaptation, it even resembles a comic book with its parade of contorted faces, arms and torsos being shot and/or shredded in extreme slow motion and usually in close up. So much so, you could almost imagine it as a panel on a comic page with the accompanying 'Thud!' or 'Ka-pow!' captions.

As Anderson the rookie, Olivia Thirlby puts in a good, not too showy performance. Anderson is a mutant possessing psychic powers and there are some effective and imaginative scenes where she utilizes them to full effect. There's also a very poignant moment where the full gravity of being a Judge hits her for the first time, as her psychic powers hammer home a sad realization to her based on her performing the compulsory duties of a judge. It's details like this that make this movie several notches above other comic book movies like it.

It also even seems to have been informed by the Christopher Nolan take on Batman/The Dark Knight: everything is gritty and grounded in realism, and Urban's growling delivery of the dialog is not exactly dissimilar to Christian Bale's own take on delivering dialog when in Batman mode. Both also share a similar ruthlessness when trying to 'obtain' a confession/ information from a suspect.

There are a few small minuses: the Judge Dredd of the comic was a proud, dedicated lawman, who was committed to his job with military efficiency; therefore it doesn't really make sense that he would show up for duty in a dusty uniform and a beaten, scratched helmet. Similarly, while they may have got the design of the aforementioned helmet right, they've taken some large detours from the original design of the uniform: gone is the eagle from the right shoulder; instead, it's been worked in as a kind of padding. Worse, the iconic bike – the 'Lawmaster' – looks cheap and none too powerful. This was one of the few elements the 1995 version almost got right. And if you really want to nitpick, in one scene, Urban says, "Sh*t!" Everyone knows that in that particular scene, he should have actually said "Stomm!" or "Drokk!" - Dredd's trademark swear words.

Even the plot bears an absolutely uncanny resemblance to that of another of this year's releases: The Raid. Just substitute gunfights for the balletic martial arts on display in that film, and you've almost got the same movie. Hell, even the look and the music score are similar. The makers of Dredd must have had sunken spirits when they saw it. As Dredd was made first, the jury's out on exactly what – if anything – is going on, but this has to be the most unbelievable case of psychic plagiarism ever seen. Which is a shame, because if The Raid hadn't existed, this would have been brilliant rather than just great. But don't let that put you off. Dredd is still a super and very noisy comic book movie that will keep you gripped to the very end. If this is the beginning of a trilogy/series, then it's off to a good start. See it now.