Lee and I have literally had no time to spend together this week so I booked him in tonight and we decided to go see the latest Bruce Willis/Joseph Gordon Levitt film: Looper and boy, what a film!
Mini Review of Looper
Bit of an interesting concept this one, basically it focuses on Joseph Gordon Levitt’s character who is an assassin for people from the future who are sent back in time to be killed by a future gangster a) because it’s harder to hide bodies in the future (apparently, though this isn’t really elaborated on) and b) because time travel has been discovered in the future but also made illegal so only the gangster types use it.
On top of this, when these Loopers (the assassins) are signed up, they have to agree to kill the older versions of themselves (say 30 years older than their current age) so basically things get interesting at this point because the older versions have lives and don’t want to get killed and there are some other ‘big bad things’ going on but I won’t elaborate too much as that’d ruin the film.
Anyway, lets see, well Joseph Gordon Levitt somehow pulled off an amazing Bruce Willis. They both have what I call ‘squinty eyes’ (this isn’t critical from my point of view, just my way of describing them – they’re both attractive to me!) but other than that, I’d never seen a similarity but the make-up artists do some good work and then JGL does what he does best and that is acts really really well! He’s clearly studied Bruce Willis because he got the posture, laugh, tone of voice and even subtleties like the like the slight downturn of the mouth down to a tea and I was very impressed.
Bruce for his part played the role in his own Brucey way and I think he’s great but it’s just normal Bruce Willis stuff – can’t complain though because I like his way of performing so all good in my eyes!
Emily Blunt did a good US accent and played her caring mum performance well but the star of the show was Pierce Gagnon, who played her son, Cid. The boy can’t be much more than 6 or 7 but he has an intensity of screen-presence that is barely seen from most actors quadruple his age, never mind in such a young man – such a strong performance and very interesting character.
The action is pretty good but not quite what I was expecting but can’t complain, though some bits were a bit slow but then I think that’s because it’s not actually an action film when all is said and done, there’s a lot more depth and complexity than that.
Conclusion
I went in really thinking that I’d be seeing a slightly futuristic action flick and came out being wowed by the story (it’s so much more than just the assassins and time travel) and the portrayal of the characters. My view is that this is worth seeing for seeing Pierce Gagnon’s performance alone, it is truly outstanding.
9/10
Happy Thursday!
Love
Jen
