Looper (2012)
Nov. 2nd, 2012 16:51![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
starladyLooper. Dir. Rian Johnson, 2012.
I really, really liked this movie. It was very well-done in a lot of ways, and JGL and Bruce Willis and the whole cast, really, did an excellent job.
Wired:: The movie gets major points for handwaving the mechanism of time travel - at one point Old Joe even says, "I'm not going to explain how it works, we'll be here forever with straws for diagrams, fucking time travel," and really, that's about right: no science bullshit that people who know science could see through from a mile away, no mess, no fuss. I also really liked the well-thought out details of worldbuilding - who else caught that by the 2040s the world is on a unified currency? - and the way that shiny new tech coexisted with older, jerry-rigged and repaired tech. I like Joe's fashion sense and Abe's and the fact that this may be the only movie I've seen in eons that actually understands how quantum mechanics works and what its actual ramifications would be in the event of actual time travel. The movie also understands the mob and how it works pretty well, which I always appreciate. Perhaps inevitably, I was reminded of Holly Black's Curseworkers trilogy, and unlike some other people I know, I found it pretty realistic that humanity would invent time travel and then immediately cede it to the mob. We're the civilization that invented the internet and now uses it primarily to serve advertising, after all. I don't think our posterity is going to give us very high marks in that respect.
Tired - That said, though this was a smart, well-written movie overall, I did have some problems. The movie gets the mob really well, but is it really necessary for 2044 to have the same mafia/gender politics as 2012? Or 1944? I'm talking here of Piper Perabo, whose character I liked but, I'm sorry, whose abs make it impossible for me to see her as vulnerable, even when she's topless. For Yuletide I want the fic where she takes over the business in Kansas City after the end of the movie. I also liked that the movie rolled with our knowledge of tropes - of course her kid is going to be the Rainmaker! - and came up with, no wait, her kid is one of three kids who might be the Rainmaker! Nicely done.
Speaking of the Rainmaker, I liked that the TK gene got play in the second and third acts of the movie - remember what Chekov said about guns - and really, if there's one thing this movie shows, it's that Professor X is never around when you need him. Cid was a creepy, creepy kid, and I'm not at all sure he can grow up to be good (epershand and I turned to each other when the credits rolled and said, "For Yuletide I want the fic where he becomes the Rainmaker anyway!"), and the semi-folie a deux that he and his mother are engaged in over whether or not she's his mother, particularly before she claims to set the record straight to Joe, made me roll my eyes and say, "Even the five-year old has manpain!"
Speaking of manpain…did we have to? I mean, maybe it wasn't quite manpain, since Old Joe's wife isn't killed because he's a special snowflake, but it does provide the impetus for him to go on this quest that sets the whole plot in motion and destabilizes thirty years of global history. Pretty darn manpain-y, no matter how you slice it.
Fired: Summer Qing was great in her micro-amount of screen time, but unless I miss my recollection, she didn't even have one actual line. I liked Abe telling Joe, "I'm from the future. Go to China." But this isn't necessarily how I wanted that to play out, as much as I did like seeing Joe in China.
JGL did a great job playing Bruce Willis, and the movie was really great overall. If you haven't seen Brick, you really, really need to.
I really, really liked this movie. It was very well-done in a lot of ways, and JGL and Bruce Willis and the whole cast, really, did an excellent job.
Wired:: The movie gets major points for handwaving the mechanism of time travel - at one point Old Joe even says, "I'm not going to explain how it works, we'll be here forever with straws for diagrams, fucking time travel," and really, that's about right: no science bullshit that people who know science could see through from a mile away, no mess, no fuss. I also really liked the well-thought out details of worldbuilding - who else caught that by the 2040s the world is on a unified currency? - and the way that shiny new tech coexisted with older, jerry-rigged and repaired tech. I like Joe's fashion sense and Abe's and the fact that this may be the only movie I've seen in eons that actually understands how quantum mechanics works and what its actual ramifications would be in the event of actual time travel. The movie also understands the mob and how it works pretty well, which I always appreciate. Perhaps inevitably, I was reminded of Holly Black's Curseworkers trilogy, and unlike some other people I know, I found it pretty realistic that humanity would invent time travel and then immediately cede it to the mob. We're the civilization that invented the internet and now uses it primarily to serve advertising, after all. I don't think our posterity is going to give us very high marks in that respect.
Tired - That said, though this was a smart, well-written movie overall, I did have some problems. The movie gets the mob really well, but is it really necessary for 2044 to have the same mafia/gender politics as 2012? Or 1944? I'm talking here of Piper Perabo, whose character I liked but, I'm sorry, whose abs make it impossible for me to see her as vulnerable, even when she's topless. For Yuletide I want the fic where she takes over the business in Kansas City after the end of the movie. I also liked that the movie rolled with our knowledge of tropes - of course her kid is going to be the Rainmaker! - and came up with, no wait, her kid is one of three kids who might be the Rainmaker! Nicely done.
Speaking of the Rainmaker, I liked that the TK gene got play in the second and third acts of the movie - remember what Chekov said about guns - and really, if there's one thing this movie shows, it's that Professor X is never around when you need him. Cid was a creepy, creepy kid, and I'm not at all sure he can grow up to be good (
epershand and I turned to each other when the credits rolled and said, "For Yuletide I want the fic where he becomes the Rainmaker anyway!"), and the semi-folie a deux that he and his mother are engaged in over whether or not she's his mother, particularly before she claims to set the record straight to Joe, made me roll my eyes and say, "Even the five-year old has manpain!"Speaking of manpain…did we have to? I mean, maybe it wasn't quite manpain, since Old Joe's wife isn't killed because he's a special snowflake, but it does provide the impetus for him to go on this quest that sets the whole plot in motion and destabilizes thirty years of global history. Pretty darn manpain-y, no matter how you slice it.
Fired: Summer Qing was great in her micro-amount of screen time, but unless I miss my recollection, she didn't even have one actual line. I liked Abe telling Joe, "I'm from the future. Go to China." But this isn't necessarily how I wanted that to play out, as much as I did like seeing Joe in China.
JGL did a great job playing Bruce Willis, and the movie was really great overall. If you haven't seen Brick, you really, really need to.