One of the things I liked best about the film was the slow (like, embarrassingly slow) realization that I was NOT rooting for Old Joe. Him killing that little boy was a point of no return,
but I didn't realize until the final confrontation that Old Joe was not our
protagonist. We are so conditioned to side with characters who are motivated by love, it takes time to see that Old Joe is not the wiser of the Joes. In actuality, Young Joe comes to understand the nature of love far better than Old Joe does--he chooses self-sacrifice for the greater good over preserving one individual's experience of love. He sees beyond himself and breaks the cycle so that others can thrive.
I mean, you all saw the movie. You know this. But can we talk about it a bit? That was amazing!
Okay so this movie you guys. Two days ago I would swear up and down that Safety Not Guaranteed was the best film of the year, but now...I think I'm on team Looper. Just. Wow. It almost never happens that a movie is that surprising and makes sense. That it also makes statements about ending the cycle of violence, self-sacrifice, and the subjectivity of good/evil at the end of a shoot-em-up action movie? Incredible.
Details I absolutely loved: Old Joe's falling-in-love montage, Sara's mimed smoke on the porch, Abe's understated death off-camera cuing that he is not our main antagonist, Joe practicing French while waiting to kill someone, frog toy booty call, final shots of Sara and Sid going through daily life together.
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 2, Skyfall, The Dark Knight Rises, Magic Mike, Brave, Prometheus
7 comments:
I liked this movie a lot, for a lot of the reasons you mentioned. The one thing I struggled to get was the unquestioned assumption that everyone (literally every character) was either a (straight, male) mobster, a mother, a wife, or a prostitute. Also I'm used to seeing more racial diversity in stuff set in the future. It felt like a pastiche of the fifties but with time travel and gagets. You'd hope the future would be a bit more exclusive, or at least prejudiced in new and interesting ways. It's a tiny background detail and didn't hurt the plot but it stuck out like a sore thumb to me.
Yeah, I'm right there with you. It bugs me every time a movie fails to present a diverse cast, pass the Bechdel test, etc., even if I don't always speak to that in my review. I could make the same number of comics, strictly about the treatment/invisibility of women/POC/LGBQT/etc. characters, for any of these movies. :-/
Those 2 Time Elapsed/Enjoyment Graphs sum up my feelings about Looper EXACTLY! :D
I love the comics! But I must say, my mind is positively boggled by people who mistook Sara for Suzie (and I know a few). Some people just have better facial recognition than others, I guess...and some people think all blondes look alike ;)
I too wish Rian's movies passed the Bechdel test a little better (Bloom just barely skated by, while Looper and Brick are totally out of the question)...but they're such excellent films, it's hard to get hung up on it.
Liked the movie a lot. Your reaction comics rock. I'm a bit behind on my movie watching. I'll come back when I catch up.
Chris
@ChrisSturhann
Brick cast had two major african-american characters:
Meagan Good ... Kara
Brian White ... Brad Bramish
Brothers Bloom had one major Japanese character:
Rinko Kikuchi ... Bang Bang
I am stunned anyone could confuse Sara and Suzie... They don't look a thing alike, they just both happen to be (different shades and styles of) blond. That'd be like saying Young-Joe and Jesse were mistakable because they're both brunettes. Also, why would Suzie, as a character, be out in the country chopping at a stump? That wouldn't follow.
I like the comics, and shared some of the reactions (and adored the film, top-knotch)... but that part of the review really stuck out to me. I think that's an issue on the viewer side, not the casting side.
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