Top 10 Movies of 2012

1. The Hobbit

2. The Dark Knight Rises

3. The Avengers

4. Looper

5. Argo

6. Rock of Ages

7. Mission Impossible 4: Ghost Protocol

8. Skyfall

9. Expendables 2

10. Cabin In the Woods

Looper – Movie Review

The sign that a movie is really good is when it gets an audible reaction from the audience in the cinema. Comedies should make people laugh out loud, horror movies should make people scream in terror and sci-fi/ action movies should make people jump in joy at the unfolding action is. There was lots of gasps and audible remarks from the highly entertained people sitting in to see Looper when I seen it.

In 2074, the mob gets rid of people by sending them 30 years into the past, where a hired hit-man kills them. Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is one of those hit-men and he is very good at what he does. Things start to spiral out of control though when Joe’s future self (Bruce Willis) is sent back in time to be killed by himself. When Joe fails to kill his older self, things get really ugly.

Explaining Looper is pretty darn tough as you can tell from my attempted explanation above. While I watched Looper I figured I understood what was happening but when I thought about it more extensively I found myself getting confused by the time travel implications. Complexity aside I have to say that Looper is probably one of the best movies of 2012.

Looper’s plot tries to surprise the audience at every turn. The movie starts out very dark, slow-paced and stylized, it then amps up the action and violence to 11. The film’s last third could never have been predicted when the movie started and it sees the appearance of the lovely Emily Blunt which is always good. If I had to compare Looper to just one movie it would be Terminator. The race to assassinate people before they do things they haven’t actually done yet is a big part of this story. We also have the protector and the killer going head to head like Arnie vs Robert Patrick. The film also has elements of  The Adjustment Bureau, Repo Men and even Minority Report to some extent.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is terrific in the lead, showing that he really is a big time movie star now. He has the acting chops as-well as the charm to get the audience on his side. His makeup on this movie however was thoroughly pointless and just served to distract me from the story. Their intention was to make him look like Bruce Willis but it just looks really strange. Willis isn’t in the film as much as Levitt but his performance here is the best thing he’s done in a long time. Willis is a fine actor and he really has an interesting character to work with here.

Looper will shock you, excite you and generally entertain you from start to finish.  It’s a sci-fi movie that has great ideas and wants to have fun while executing those ideas and believe me it succeeds in every department (except the make up department).

RATING: 5/5