Looper - Grade, Review, Discuss, ect.

[Temis the Vorta]

As an aside, did anyone else think that Kid Blue (the guy who shot off part of his foot) was the younger version of Jeff Daniel's Abe?

I thought that was so obvious I was surprised they didn't go there. The kid being the Rainmaker was obvious from the first moment he was introduced. I kept hoping for some other twist, the kid gets killed and Emily Blunt becomes the Rainmaker or something...no such luck.

Bob The Skutter wrote:

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Sure there are plot holes big enough to drive a truck through but it doesn't matter because it pulls you along for the ride.

Only if it's fast paced enough to stop wayward thoughts from creeping in...if it's so hard to dispose of a body in the future, what are they going to do with Bruce Willis' Chinese wife? Killing her creates this terrible problem so why don't they have weapons that stun people to avoid them having to deal with tagged corpses that are impossible to dispose of for some vague reason? Oh they could put her in the time machine...but why can't they kill Willis and put him in the time machine too...and why assign his past self to kill him? Wouldn't it be a lot smarter to enact a strict policy against doing that, due to it being extremely stupid and likely to cause trouble and then they'd have no movie...

I found this movie far too slow paced and padded to keep my mind from wandering into places that made me increasingly disgruntled. Contrast this with Minority Report, which really was fast paced enough to squelch such thoughts until the movie was over. This movie could have used an editor and also a director who realized that trying to turn this nonsense into some artsy fartsy character study was the worst approach. Better to just acknowledge that the material is good mindless action fodder, nothing more.

[od0_ital]

^

The house was set on fire to cover up the murder of the wife in the future. It would look like an accidental death, rather than a murder.

[Yoda]

^That must've been a crazy one time expenditure... If only arson, while effective, was also cheap, like time travel

[od0_ital]

^

Just sayin'...her death is covered up by the fire.

Also, any damn fool can cause a fire...time travel shows that the particular mobster/gangster/criminal organization has power, an outlawed ability beyond the norm that will cause a bit of fear in rivals.

[Robert Maxwell]

Temis the Vorta wrote:

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Wouldn't it be a lot smarter to enact a strict policy against doing that, due to it being extremely stupid and likely to cause trouble and then they'd have no movie...

That's why the Loopers simply pull the trigger as soon as the target appears. You aren't supposed to know that you killed your future self until you're examining the body.

In any case, closing the loops is what makes the whole system work. Each assassin is responsible for his own death. Nice and neat. The way they dealt with the kid who couldn't kill his future self struck me more as one of those things that they just thought would be cool to do in a movie, rather than something that makes any sense. Why would you systematically mutilate the present self in order to draw the future self to a specific location? How is that present self supposed to keep on existing to become his future self? Is he really just going to be tied to a bed for 30 years? Or will they kill his future self, then kill him in the present? That whole angle made no sense at all.

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

Temis the Vorta wrote:

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I thought that was so obvious I was surprised they didn't go there. The kid being the Rainmaker was obvious from the first moment he was introduced. I kept hoping for some other twist, the kid gets killed and Emily Blunt becomes the Rainmaker or something...no such luck.

Only if it's fast paced enough to stop wayward thoughts from creeping in...if it's so hard to dispose of a body in the future, what are they going to do with Bruce Willis' Chinese wife? Killing her creates this terrible problem so why don't they have weapons that stun people to avoid them having to deal with tagged corpses that are impossible to dispose of for some vague reason? Oh they could put her in the time machine...but why can't they kill Willis and put him in the time machine too...and why assign his past self to kill him? Wouldn't it be a lot smarter to enact a strict policy against doing that, due to it being extremely stupid and likely to cause trouble and then they'd have no movie...

I found this movie far too slow paced and padded to keep my mind from wandering into places that made me increasingly disgruntled. Contrast this with Minority Report, which really was fast paced enough to squelch such thoughts until the movie was over. This movie could have used an editor and also a director who realized that trying to turn this nonsense into some artsy fartsy character study was the worst approach. Better to just acknowledge that the material is good mindless action fodder, nothing more.

I agree with you about Looper. There was only enough material here for a short film. They made it seem more artsy-fartsy by having it feel like an independent film rather than a studio film, as if to somehow divert us from the thin writing and problematic story, as well as the complete shift where the story goes.

I do have bigger with Minority Report. That is nice-looking but truly awful film. What Pre-Crime does in that movie is so ludicrous that I will barely go into it here. Arresting someone for a "future murder" is ridiculous beyond comprehension. To use the rolling wooden ball used in the film to illustrate predestination, PreCrime is, essentially, charging people for damages to the floor caused by the wooden ball hitting it even if the Tom Cruise catches the ball in the air prior to it hitting the floor.

[JD]

Well, the Precrime concept comes from a PKD short story, so the movie is not to blame for the concept.

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

JD wrote:

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Well, the Precrime concept comes from a PKD short story, so the movie is not to blame for the concept.

Of course it is. It used the concept, right? I haven't read the PKD story, but I would say that regardless, MR used the preCime concept badly, right?

You can't say that just because an idea originates somewhere else that you can absolve a film of responsibility.

I don't get your point....

[stj]

Part of the point of Minority Report is that the whole precrime concept is a monstrous miscarriage of justice. Calling precrime an absurdity doesn't really acknowledge the movie's plot.

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

Yet the filmmakers have us believe that PreCRime would be credible enough to go unchecked in Washington for six years before the DoJ would send someone to even have a look and see how absurd it all is. It's an absurd premise, done badly. Somehow because it's Spielberg, and because of the FX, it seems to get a pass. People forget to look at how bad the screenplay is... or how trite the action is. A bunch of guys fighting on jetpacks in an alleyway makes for a trite action scene. Even worse is the hero in a car factory and having the machines build the car around him so he can escape in it. Absurd. Worse yet, the hero falling into a room in an awkward position that matches the odd yoga positions of everyone in there... is this a serious film or is it the Naked Gun??

And what is up with that old woman's garden of attacking vines??

[stj]

The last time I saw a believable set of action sequences was Premium Rush. Before that, The Children of Men. Before that was so long ago I don't remember. I'm not sure of the point here.

People's blindness to the absurdity of Precrime is supposed to be an outrageous complacency.

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

Now your talking about the action scenes in general have been done for the last few years. On that level, most action scenes in modern films are absurd, but you seem to be missing my point by overstating it...

[Gaith]

Flying Spaghetti Monster wrote:

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Yet the filmmakers have us believe that PreCRime would be credible enough to go unchecked in Washington for six years before the DoJ would send someone to even have a look and see how absurd it all is. It's an absurd premise, done badly.

No more absurd than Vertigo or Inception.

Flying Spaghetti Monster wrote:

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Worse yet, the hero falling into a room in an awkward position that matches the odd yoga positions of everyone in there... is this a serious film or is it the Naked Gun??

And what is up with that old woman's garden of attacking vines??

Touches like those are meant to be weird and off-putting, like strange and surreal moments one gets in a nightmare. Minority Report is really more of a dreamlike movie than Inception is.

[CaptainCanada]

Flying Spaghetti Monster wrote:

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Yet the filmmakers have us believe that PreCRime would be credible enough to go unchecked in Washington for six years before the DoJ would send someone to even have a look and see how absurd it all is.

No, the sillier thing about pre-crime if you looked at it objectively is the notion that any society would ever give it up after going murder-free for six years. That would never happen.

od0_ital wrote:

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^

Just sayin'...her death is covered up by the fire.


Also, any damn fool can cause a fire...time travel shows that the particular mobster/gangster/criminal organization has power, an outlawed ability beyond the norm that will cause a bit of fear in rivals.

The director stated in interviews that the death of Willis' wife was a big screwup on the part of the gangsters, and setting fire to the house is an attempt at covering it up that will fail.

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

No, the sillier thing about pre-crime if you looked at it objectively is the notion that any society would ever give it up after going murder-free for six years. That would never happen.

Uh --- no. No one would agree with what PreCrime does once they have a look at their methods, which include unusual treatment of disabled children and cruel and unusual punishment of people who haven't actually done anything wrong.