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Looper

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Paul Pepera polycounter lvl 9
Anyone else see it? Got back from a showing a few hours ago and I thought the movie was great, probably my favorite of this year so far.

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  • Ace-Angel
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    Ace-Angel polycounter lvl 12
    Nope, but interested, how was the story? Any major plot-holes or inception level detail?
  • snake85027
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    snake85027 polycounter lvl 18
    really good movie, a little different than what they were showing through the commercials.
  • Ace-Angel
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    Ace-Angel polycounter lvl 12
    In what sense is it different, mind me asking? Is it Splice level different (EI: Making the movie look like a higher function movie, when it was a mess) or Inception level?
  • ausernottaken
    It seems like with all of this time travel business, there might be potential for some plot holes, but I haven't really looked into much.
  • erik!
  • 3devo
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    3devo polycounter lvl 12
    saw it today. really enjoyed it. less sci-fi ish and more drama than i anticipated, but good movie overall. ill be honest for about 10 mins after the end i felt that it was a bit of a cop out ending, then it sorta grew on me. no glaringly obvious plot holes that i could tell (but i was tired and well and truly in for the ride). if you can go see it.
  • Shiniku
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    Shiniku polycounter lvl 9
    I really enjoyed it.

    In any time travel movie there are bound to be plotholes. This movie does a pretty good job of explaining things, but there are still some things that seem odd.
    Mostly, just the biggest plot element - that they need to send people to be assassinated in the past at all. It seems convoluted. They explain it with one line about how it's near impossible to dispose of bodies int he future... well, why don't they just send the bodies back then? Also, we see people get killed in the future. What do they do with their bodies?

    Overall pretty interesting. I think the trailers gave me a fairly accurate representation of what to expect, without spoiling anything too major or telling us exactly where the plot is going to go.

    If you like time travel movies, this is a good one. Probably not the best but definitely enjoyable, and it's nice to see some original movies.

    oh, something just occurred to me in regards to the ending.
    Okay, so at the end there young Joe seems to believe that Cid's mother getting killed will lead to him becoming alone and hostile and turning into the evil Rainmaker guy. This seems verified by the original description given of the rainmaker - that he saw his mother die, and has a prosthetic jaw (presumably because old Joe shoots him in it).

    So basically, it's presumed that old Joe is the cause of Cid going bad, and so by killing himself and removing old Joe from existence, I initially thought that meant that Cid would have his mother to raise him and he at least had a chance of turning out good. but wait, in old Joe's original timeline he "closes the loop" on himself. So old Joe never ran around and chances are in that timeline Joe never knew anything about Cid and his mother and would have had no reason to see or interact with them. So does that mean Cid was raised properly by his mother but went bad regardless? How did he get the prosthetic jaw and see his mother die if Old Joe never survived long enough to meet him as a child in that timeline?

    Okay that's a bit of a mess.
  • erroldynamic
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    erroldynamic polycounter lvl 18
    Haven't seen it yet but I'm a big fan of Gordon-Levitt and Rian Johnson so definitely gonna check it!
  • shotgun
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    shotgun polycounter lvl 19
    Shiniku wrote: »
    So basically, it's presumed that old Joe is the cause of Cid going bad, and so by killing himself and removing old Joe from existence, I initially thought that meant that Cid would have his mother to raise him and he at least had a chance of turning out good. but wait, in old Joe's original timeline he "closes the loop" on himself. So old Joe never ran around and chances are in that timeline Joe never knew anything about Cid and his mother and would have had no reason to see or interact with them. So does that mean Cid was raised properly by his mother but went bad regardless? How did he get the prosthetic jaw and see his mother die if Old Joe never survived long enough to meet him as a child in that timeline?s.


    My thoughts exactly. That's the 'hole' that is left at the end...
    ...if he never went around killing the mother, how did it ever get to the point of happening?

    My solution is that it didn't, "eventually", but the film shows this temporal chain of events leading to Joe's suicide and Rainman not being created by Joe killing the mother. Doesn't mean he wasn't created otherwise...

    1. Joe shot his old self
    2. Lived, married the Asian
    3. Went back, messed shit up
    4. Young Joe learns of this and kills himself
    5. No more story, but we still saw it happen

    Regardless, awesome movie. It was great seeing Willis in proper action, loved him. The acting was top all-around (where did they find that freaky kid...) and the chick was hot
    I was very pleased
  • Sukotto
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    Sukotto polycounter lvl 8
    Shotgun and Shiniku: Well that kind of plot hole is to be expected from a time-travel movie. If something happens in the future and someone goes back to change it so it never happens then there would be no reason for the person to go back in the first place. Y'know basic time travel logic :P

    But thats assuming that time travel does obey logic
  • oobersli
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    oobersli polycounter lvl 17
    last movie my wife and me can probably see for a while before our daughter is born... was awesome. if thats the last movie I see in theaters this year I'm good. plot holes are to be expected, but the acting and environment that the characters were put in just felt perfect. Glad to see levitt hitting another role with A grade and willis doing more action.
  • planaria
    I remember Bruce Willis specifically invoking, essentially, m-theory at one point in the diner scene, so this is not a plot hole this is a consequence of stuff like m-theory / quantum mechanics
    shotgun wrote: »
    My thoughts exactly. That's the 'hole' that is left at the end...
    ...if he never went around killing the mother, how did it ever get to the point of happening?



    My solution is that it didn't, "eventually", but the film shows this temporal chain of events leading to Joe's suicide and Rainman not being created by Joe killing the mother. Doesn't mean he wasn't created otherwise...

    1. Joe shot his old self
    2. Lived, married the Asian
    3. Went back, messed shit up
    4. Young Joe learns of this and kills himself
    5. No more story, but we still saw it happen

    Regardless, awesome movie. It was great seeing Willis in proper action, loved him. The acting was top all-around (where did they find that freaky kid...) and the chick was hot
    I was very pleased
  • Nistrum
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    Nistrum polycounter lvl 9
    personally I think it was awesome to see a film not give us the Hollywood ending.

    take that how you will folks. I wont give any more info :P
  • PogoP
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    PogoP polycounter lvl 10
    Awesome film. Don't get caught up on the time travel issues, just enjoy it for what it is. Fucking brilliant, one of my favourite films of this year. Bruce Willis was great in it, he did some really powerful acting in parts. Good old Brucey.

    One of the death scenes (I won't spoil anything with specifics) was absolutely horrifying... Actually made me squirm in the cinema. If you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about. Such a gruesome concept, but awesome to watch.
  • Sean VanGorder
    Just got back from seeing this. Awesome movie, and I agree with those who said don't think too much about it. Great to see Willis tearin' it up again.
  • Joshua Stubbles
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    Joshua Stubbles polycounter lvl 19
    Saw it Saturday night and enjoyed it as well. The time travel ideas aren't rock solid, but they weren't meant to be. The director even mentioned that he based his time travel on other movies, not science facts. Which was great, because it's more fun that way ;)

    Only thing that bugged me were the prosthetics they put on Joseph Levitt. The age gap between the two Joes was enough that it wasn't needed and he ended up feeling a little uncanny valley almost, hah. But that's a minor gripe for what was overall a good film.
  • Fuse
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    Fuse polycounter lvl 18
    Good use of the limited budget. Had low expectations and was pleasantly surprised. Looking for plot holes in a time travel film is like looking for cheap plastics in a corvette. Just let it go.
  • kevlar jens
    I really enjoyed this film.

    Great performances from two terrific actors. How they altered JGL to resemble a young Willis was really fun, and seeing em interact with each other was great. I would have liked some more of that though.

    The plot was interesting, and I liked how they sort of kept it in a small scale- having it more drama than mindless sci-fi action. Plot-holes, sure, but it's a film revolving around time-travel what can you expect.

    So yeah, definitely one of the better films this year. It didn't knock Moonrise Kingdom off its throne though. Maybe Django Unchained will..
  • Daven
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    Daven greentooth
    PogoP wrote: »
    One of the death scenes (I won't spoil anything with specifics) was absolutely horrifying... Actually made me squirm in the cinema. If you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about. Such a gruesome concept, but awesome to watch.

    Man, that part was so brutal.

    Such a great film. JGL's Willis-isms were so spot on it was almost creepy.
  • ErichWK
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    ErichWK polycounter lvl 12
    This movie reminded me of drive! In the sense that the movie is way different than what the previews make it out to be..which actually I liked because i was so surprised and completely blown away when they got to the nitty gritty of the plot. The movie did a great job having all this grey area on who really is the villian in the story. Was Bruce Willis the villian? Was it the little kid? Everyone was fighting for righteous causes...
  • glottis8
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    glottis8 polycounter lvl 9
    anyone found gordon levitt looking really weird through the whole movie? I know they try to make him look like Bruce Willis, but he looked very weird. To the point where it did bother me.

    Apart from that.. the movie did pick up once he gets to the farm.
  • Kwramm
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    Kwramm interpolator
    great movie! I loved how bruce willis went "If I explain the whole time travel thing we'll be still sitting here tomorrow..." - don't question things. Most stuff makes sense or there could be a reason. It's nice that not everything is explained to death in the movie. so just enjoy the ride.
  • shotgun
  • Sukotto
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    Sukotto polycounter lvl 8
    glottis8 wrote: »
    anyone found gordon levitt looking really weird through the whole movie? I know they try to make him look like Bruce Willis, but he looked very weird. To the point where it did bother me.

    Apart from that.. the movie did pick up once he gets to the farm.

    I think that might be because you know what JGL looks like and he looks very different than that in Looper
  • TortillaChips
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    TortillaChips polycounter lvl 10
    Another time travel thing confuses me a bit.
    His friend Seth(?) who fails to close his own loop gets tracked down and cut up, amputated in a pretty fucked up way to get his older self to a certain location to be disposed of, but at the end of the film when Joe kills himself, his older self just disappears. So you have to think, why did they go to all that trouble? You see just as the older self is about to get shot, that there seems to be a table in the background with something that's being kept alive, so they'd be keeping that body alive for 30 years to close the loop? I kinda thought they'd need to only hunt the older version so that the younger version can carry out events that they might do in the future, but that gets thrown out the window when Seth doesn't have any limbs at the end of it.

    Oh also, the random sex scene just seemed chucked in there, I guess they couldn't think of any way to tie Joe emotionally to them.
  • poopinmymouth
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    poopinmymouth polycounter lvl 19
    shotgun wrote: »
    44enG.gif

    I lolled.

    Excellent movie.
    How can the rainmaker use his powers to kill people if bodies are impossible to get rid of? Wouldn't his rise to power have left a trail of evidence?
  • Noodle!
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    Noodle! polycounter lvl 8
    I really digged the movie, and as far as time traveling plot holes go I think they did a good job.
    Really the whole notion of time travelling being connected is just silly, but they used it well enough that I felt it worked.

    I was really impressed with the psychic kid bit though, and how scary they made him feel. Usually in movies I just loathe child actors and especially if they try to make them powerful and psychic, but it worked REALLY well here.

    Not to speak of the scene where he actually kills a child, that was some strong stuff. I never thought it'd happen, and seeing how it tore him up made it one of the better scenes in the movie for me.

    Just all around a great movie, I'll probably try to nab it when it comes out on BD.
  • Justin Meisse
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    Justin Meisse polycounter lvl 18
    I'm guessing there's a string of unsolved crimes "we found what appears to be a vaporized human but no evidence of a murder weapon"
  • Jeremy Tabor
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    Jeremy Tabor polycounter lvl 13
    What a fun movie, and cool setting!

    I love that type of representation of the future. Very believable! Generally, technology only advances in areas where it needs to, and I thought the direction of this movie portrayed that very realistically. The Corn of the future still looked like the corn of Today, and I appreciated that, lol. The farmhouse didn't look any different than it would today because it didn't need to, just like we have old cars and other items floating around today. I loved that about this movie.
  • pior
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    pior grand marshal polycounter
    Hehe Per I gotta agree with all that but I think the cool part was that the little kid really was the main character. At first I thought he would simply be a plot device but to me he totally carried the second half of the movie. Also I don't think that either of the two Willises were even supposed to be likable... because, well, they both were asses really. That Looper mob boss was great too.

    I really don't understand the decisions behind the makeup thing - Bruce Willis certainly never had eyebrows like these. I was also confused by the lower lip as it seemed almost CG at times complete with missing castshadows. Ironically they could have achieved a much better result by simply giving JGL a receding hairline...

    http://indianphotos.net/misc/hollywood%20childhood/bruce%20willis/bruce%20willis%20childhood%20pictures%20(3).jpg

    Anyways! Fun stuff, quite enjoyed it - mostly thanks to the kid.
  • pior
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    pior grand marshal polycounter
    Simple : they had him grow whatever he as left of hair, but shaved the top and only kept the back (as I am pretty sure he can still grow the tiny island bush at the front hehe). It gives that instant old man look ...
  • haiddasalami
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    haiddasalami polycounter lvl 14
    Enjoyed the movie up to the kid part. Would want to check out the behind the scenes when the movie comes out on dvd/blu-ray. Dug the setting and the city.
    Was expecting more time travel fuckery but guess not :( Wasn't expecting the tk business especially when they like mentioned it twice in the movie and kinda saw the ending when the little kid started to scream at his mom. One thing that onfused me was that if he was remembering as the timeline happened, how did he not come to the conclusion that the kid was the Rainmaker. Yup 7 year old kid who is pretty damn good at electronics and somewhat crazy. Definitely not the rain maker haha.
  • ladyknowles
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    ladyknowles polycounter lvl 7
    Really enjoyed this film! Bruce Willis is badass!
  • Nick Carver
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    Nick Carver polycounter lvl 10
    I kind of enjoyed the film and it kept me pretty entertained, but I'm surprised by the universal acclaim it has received. For me, it was an awkward combination of disparate elements that felt less than the sum of its parts. Looper wears its influences very prominently and I couldn't help feeling that every aspect had been handled better in the films that it was attempting to ape. I really wanted to enjoy it more as I remember liking Brick a lot, but it felt off in terms of story, script, acting and visuals. Not half as cool, smart or compelling as the trailers, and admittedly my own expectations, had led me to believe.

    The most compelling thing in the film was definitely the scene in the dinner between Willis and JGL, but after the big tonal shift that the story takes on the farm I didn't feel that there was a satisfying pay off to what was set up in that diner scene. It became a different movie, which I guess is an interesting twist, but it left me feeling underwhelmed.

    I'm glad that it was made and that it's proven successful as it's nice to see something a little different doing well, but it's not 'this year's Matrix/Inception etc.' by any means. Definitely not a film that has stayed with me.
  • ebagg
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    ebagg polycounter lvl 17
    I thought it was really fun, definitely had some holes but the only thing that really bugged me was, as mentioned by everyone, JGL's face. Not sure how much of it was makeup versus CG, but it was uncanny valley the whole time. It feels like they could have stuck to maybe a little addition to his nose, but the whole face treatment just made him look like a really old, kind of melted JGL, instead of a young Bruce Willis.

    Felt like a nice blend of Terminator and Akira with a retro sheen. Bruce Willis was badass, Jeff Daniels was a great crime boss, but the kid was the true standout performance. Kinda wish they'd make a sequel just to follow his character.
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