Thursday, August 15, 2013

Looper (2012)

SPOILER WARNING!!! This post spoils movie Looper (2012).

Time travel is invented and made illegal. Criminals have started to use time traveling for exposing bodies. They send one they want dead back in time and in past there is guy killing the person sent back at the time they appear. These killers are called loopers because last person they kill will be their futureself. After they killed their futureself, they get 30 years before they are sent back to be killed. They get their payment in silver with every hit. When they get gold, they know they killed their futureself and closed the loop. If they don't kill their futureself, their employer find them and torture them until futureself comes to employer or kills them. Which ever happens first.

This is quite interesting concept. I how ever see some problems with way they handle this. Movie doesn't tell how present and future communicates. Looper's boss is from future. There is probably time table when people are sent back and boss could have taken that with him, when he came to movie's present. They can follow, if loopers kill they target by checking, if loopers change silver to money. But they don't know when they send loopers futureself back. There is also problem with loopers killing their futureself. Futureself knows how he killed himself in past and tries to prevent that from happening. Another problem is that they have no way to know when loop is closed.

Before anyone says they could have agreed that with looper's boss before he was sent back, I have to mention that Rainmaker started to close loops ahead of time during the movie. How much the future is changed because loops are closed and former loopers do something else? Our protagonist Joe became criminal and killed people after his loop was closed. How to future would change when same gold and silver would exist twice in present. What happens presentself changes futureself. Closing loops ahead of time should change the future, because what released loopers do present will change future by saving and killing different people.

How all the people old Joe killed in present changed the future? Joe is trying to kill one kid to change the future. He just doesn't know which is the correct kid. Okay, the movie doesn't show how future is changed. But it shows what happens to futureself when presentself is hurt. You would assume that cutting fingers would have more impact in 30 years that disappearing fingers. It is like this one change will change the future but all these other changes doesn't. Something like Samuel L. Jackson's Shaft where first and last killing meant something, but every killing in between didn't matter anything.

Time travelling was not explained too well. It seemed that they could send people only 30 year back and they couldn't adjust the time. That could explain why they didn't send unwanted people millions years back in time. That way they would not have needed loopers.

I pointed some problems in this movie's concept. However it is one of best scifi movies lately. Story is main element, not GCI. There are couple scenes in the end, which seem to be out of place. Both having one character becoming too powerful or too killing machine for rest of the story. Both scenes have different character this happens. When you see the movie, you understand which scenes I mean. If all the time travelling doesn't change the future too much, next monday's movie is Jean-Claude Van Damme movie.

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