The Hollywood News is eleven years old this month. That’s right, we are now well on our way to out teen years and boy have we come a long way since 2003. And it’s not just us, the film industry has gone from strength to strength during the last decade. They finally learned how to make a decent super-hero film for one. As part of our celebrations each of our team has been tasked with writing a piece on one of their favourite films of the last eleven years. This writer’s offering can be nothing other than LOOPER.
Released in 2012 and directed by the brilliant Rian Johnson, who will be directing STAR WARS VIII don’t you know, LOOPER is a fantastic time-travel movie. Firstly having been a fan of Johnson’s work since BRICK I was very excited for the release of LOOPER, and thankfully I wasn’t disappointed. I saw the film five times at the cinema, my first viewing had a profound effect on me. I studied film at university but after leaving education had found myself in a retail slump. After viewing LOOPER for the first time it stirred in me my passion for all things film and set me on a path which would lead me to become a writer at The Hollywood News. My second viewing was accompanied by Rian Johnson’s audio commentary; for the theatrical release of THE BROTHERS BLOOM and LOOPER the director recorded special commentaries. The experience of listening to an audio commentary whilst in the cinema was a strange one, and gave me the feeling that those around me believed I was a film pirate. My final cinema visit saw me come face to face with Johnson himself and in the process making a dream come true.
But enough about me and onto the film. LOOPER started life as a short film, the idea coming to Johnson during his work on feature debut BRICK. The short never got made and the director moved on to other things. But he found himself circling the idea again and again. Eventually he started to delve further into the concept and the film was born.
Ever since people began to make films we have been inundated with various director’s visions of the future. What sets LOOPER apart from what has come before is that the future in LOOPER is one of the few examples in cinema of a tangible dystopia. Most Post-Apocalyptic stories see the world ravaged by machines, an alien race, disease etc. In LOOPER, however, it is just how society has gone downhill – a lack of money, jobs and resources causing the crumble.
LOOPER oozes cool. Rather than being ‘futuristic’ in style the film instead looks to the past which, lets face it, is what we really do. You only have to look at the circular pattern of fashion for proof that, rather than looking forwards, we tend to look back. Similarly with films, rather than make new ideas filmmakers, or studios at least, instead look to past films and see what can be done with them. Instead of looking like it is from the year 2044, LOOPER instead feels much more like the 1920s. This throwback to yesteryear is actually realistic (I doubt very much we’ll all be in neon cat suits when the year does arrive).
The film is clever in the way that it deals with time-travel without actually dealing with time-travel. At several moments in the film it seems like we may be about to have things explained to us only for one of the characters to brush it off, remarking that ‘we’re going to be here all day talking about it’. This disregard for explaining the rules and conventions of LOOPER’s time-travel isn’t because Johnson couldn’t explain it. He has stated several times that he has it all written down, perfectly explaining just how the timelines work. His reluctance to going into too much detail in the film came because you could make a film purely on that topic, whereas LOOPER is a film that happens to have time-travel aspects, instead of being a purely time-travel movie. The ‘sci-fi’ aspects to the film are also believable; yes, there are hover-bikes, but they don’t work too well, with people once more preferring old technology.
After having become close friends with Joseph Gordon-Levitt on BRICK, and Levitt having a brief cameo in BROTHERS BLOOM, he and Johnson decided to once more work together. Levitt showcased that he is an incredible talent as he perfectly portrayed a viable young Bruce Willis. His performance was enhanced by the make-up work which altered the younger actor’s facial features to resemble the older man, but the effort that Levitt put into getting Willis’ intricate mannerisms down is to be commended. He spent hours watching Willis’ work in order to perfect his very soft spoken voice and expressions, the results are incredibly believable. Willis himself must be the go-to-guy for characters who meet their past selves, as LOOPER marks the third time that this has happened to one of his characters, the others being THE KID and TWELVE MONKEYS. His version of Joe isn’t the evil villain that one would expect, instead he is a very conflicted soul; does he commit the ultimate crime and save his beloved or do nothing and have her die?
JGL wasn’t the only returning player from BRICK though, as Johnson had also formed a close bond with Noah Segan, the actor who played Dode. In fact Segan was written into the script, his character’s moniker Kid Blue being Segan’s nickname and Twitter handle. Kid Blue is a pathetic, sympathetic bad guy. You feel sorry for him, which isn’t the norm for baddies. I myself was struck by the relationship between Kid Blue and Abe. It is very much the uninterested father and the try-hard son. Kid Blue will do anything to try and impress Abe, and get his approval. Abe is the father figure that he never had and doesn’t want to lose. Personally the character of Kid Blue really resonated with me. His whole mission in the film is to be treated with respect and to be taken seriously. I think a lot of people out there can relate to being wanted to be taken seriously by those around us, and we all have people that we want to be proud of us.
After the film’s release there was a lot of chatter about Kid Blue being the younger version of Abe; that this explains why he doesn’t just have Kid Blue killed considering the amount of time he mucks up. Johnson has dismissed this theory and having viewed the film multiple times their relationship is definitely more of a father/son one. To compare to OLIVER, Abe is kind of the Fagin, collecting in lost young men and giving them a purpose in life. In this analogy Joe becomes Oliver, and Kid Blue The Artful Dodger.
There were friends of mine who, on the film’s release, said that there was no need for them to watch the film as the trailer had given away the film. It is true that many trailers these days are known to tell the entire plot of the film in three minutes; most comedy trailers spoil the movie by giving away all the good gags, but LOOPER does not fall into the spoilerific category. Yes, the trailer talks about time-travel, Loopers and closing your loop, but so does the opening sequence to the film. It also shows Older Joe and Younger Joe stalking each other but the film’s entire second act is kept completely hidden.
For me LOOPER is very much the illegitimate love-child of THE TERMINATOR and BACK TO THE FUTURE. The plot is very close to that of Cameron’s 1984 classic and the film is peppered with other elements that remind the viewer of the film that launched Arnold Schwarzenegger. The obvious link to BACK TO THE FUTURE would be the hover vehicle. However, I felt that some of the humour was also reminiscent of the films, mainly the sly references to the future, and Abe advising Joe he should go to China. For some reason, and this is potentially just myself that thinks this, there are parts of Kid Blue that screamed Biff when I first saw it.
The score, composed by Rian Johnson’s cousin Nathan Johnson, gives the film an industrial depth. In order to create the soundtrack Johnson conducted a series of field recordings. He then manipulated the recordings to sound like orchestra instruments which were then later combined with live strings and horns which ended up producing a memorable and textured score. Have a listen to some of the score music online and remember that some of what you are listening to was created by treadmills and industrial fans.
This is Rian Johnson’s first foray into the science-fiction feature and it has served him well for the mammoth project that he is about to undertake. In all honesty I am one of the few ‘film people’ that does not enjoy the STAR WARS movies; I understand that some deem this a kind of sin, but I wasn’t brought up with them. In fact, I actually waited so long to see the series that I watched them in story chronological order. This being said though, with Johnson attached for the eighth edition, I am actually actively looking forward to a STAR WARS film.
In conclusion, LOOPER stole my heart the first time I watched it and every repeat viewing since has seen me fall deeper and deeper in love with it. Hopefully as time passes it will develop a huge audience and be granted the same lasting power as that of THE TERMINATOR so that fans can enjoy it for years to come.
Check out all THN’s favourite films and continue our 11th Birthday celebrations by heading here!
