Looper - Grade, Review, Discuss, ect.

[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]

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.

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]

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.

^

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.

 

[CaptainCanada]

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.

PreCrime successfully eradicated homicide. While there might be changes to how the post-arrest phase was handled, it would never in a million years be done away with. No politician would ever make that call; it'd be the Guantanamo Bay controversy, where nobody wants to take responsibility for closing it or bringing the inmates to American soil for trial on the off-chance that something bad happens, times one million. Here, it's guaranteed that something bad will happen, and lots of people will start dying again. If by some miracle it was closed down, the first child killed would kick off a "bring back PreCrime" campaign that would quickly reinstate it as the bodies piled up.

It would also be worth noting that we do, in fact, punish crimes of intent today, which is how PreCrime seems to work (hence, for instance, why premeditated murder is detectable so far in advance, whereas they have to race to stop crimes of passion). The precogs are just a far more elaborate tool for assessing intent than we will ever possess. The guy they stop in the opening sequence, for instance, would be on the hook for attempted murder under our current laws (though it would be worth inquiring, in a lot of those cases, whether there's any likelihood of reoffending, since that guy clearly snapped in a moment of extreme surprise, and probably wouldn't repeat the action after being stopped).

 

[1001001]

I finally saw this for the first time today.

I thought it was pretty good, although it did slow down quite a bit once they got to the farm. I guess that was the "heart" of the movie, eh?

Good ending.

"Above Average"

 

[Trekker4747]

I finally saw this for the first time today.

I thought it was pretty good, although it did slow down quite a bit once they got to the farm. I guess that was the "heart" of the movie, eh?

Good ending.

"Above Average"

It did slow down by the stuff on the farm, but some of it I also liked. I also liked the Booty Call frog.

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwDbqhl_p3g[/yt]



Anyway, as I'm sure I said above the "funniest" parts of the movie for me is whenever the kid went into his little "fits" the way it was shown was just more funny and cheesy than dramatic and scary. Also, movie, your heroine shouldn't look stronger and more bad-ass than your hero. Also, the TK thing came out of nowhere, made no sense (uhh... humans just developed it in the last 40 years or so... Yeah.) was forgotten about only to sort of come back later.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

Also, movie, your heroine shouldn't look stronger and more bad-ass than your hero.

I noticed this, too, when I saw it. I dare anyone to tlel me that she doesn't look stronger than the hero. I remember when this scene played out, Levvitt actually flinched like a girl when she brought that axe back.

I also agree with you about the TK thing

The only thing I admired about the film was how they filmed the meeting at the diner between Willis and Levitt. These are clearly two different actors, but the director staged the shots as if he was setting up split screen shots in the way he might as if he was using a VistaGlide camera system, which would be needed if he had the same actor playing both versions of the character. Such shots are difficult to pull off and had to be done carefully, a'la Back to the Future Part 2.

 

[stj]

She doesn't look nearly as bad ass as a gun. It's like the Jem H'adar on DS9, looking sexy bad ass hasn't got anything to do with being bad, or even just being bad ass.

The movie would have been stronger if it had actually made any sense. Nonetheless, all the nonsense doesn't resolve a dramatic dilemma, it sets one up: What will JGL do about Bruce, when an alternate version of himself (the kid, that is,) with a chance at a morally better life at stake? The movie presumes that the audience will find killing for a living to be morally reprehensible and therefore find JGL's choice an acceptable resolution. If the actors made you care and believe in his choice, the movie is a success.

 

[1001001]

The movie would have been stronger if it had actually made any sense.

Well, sure.

I thought that this movie required a lot of good faith and willingness to overlook the obvious problem of time travel to the past. If you're willing to grant those points, then it's pretty good.

I thought JGL did fine. He's certainly come a long way from Third Rock From the Sun...

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Also, movie, your heroine shouldn't look stronger and more bad-ass than your hero.

That was kind of the point. His character wasn't a badass. He was just a dumb kid with a gun and no ambition in life (hence becoming a looper in the first place.) Of course she was stronger than him, both physically and mentally. She had something to live and fight for.