Love is powerful. It can make us do crazy things. The lengths to which a person will go got get it, to keep it, and to protect it can be quite extreme. How far would you go for love? Would you let the whole world burn to protect those dearest to you? That is one of the central themes running through the great time travel movie, Looper, but it is not the only one. The power of free will confronts the momentum of fate. The importance of fathers in the life of men is also is also put to the test. The one question that is not in the movie, thank goodness, is the one nerds have been discussing since H.G. Wells' The Time Machine and that is how to resolve the paradoxes implicit in the concept of time travel. As Bruce Willis' character yells out "It just doesn't matter!" The person responsible for the set design really needs recognition. The distopian near future is done with such a light subtle touch that you scarcely notice it on a conscious level and yet is pervasive just below the surface. (This does not count the silly and unnecessary jet-cycle which I swear had a Harley Davidson primary cover on it). Emily Blunt, as Sarah, puts in a performance worthy of note. While Jeff Daniels and Bruce Willis both combine charm with menace in a delightful way. I get the same vibe from this movie I did from the classic Gattaca. In a world of despair, there is always hope.
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Looper was good, and that's exactly why I'm a bit disappointed: because it could have been great.
Unlike many people (repoman included, apparently), I don't buy this "it doesn't matter!", cooler-than-thou attitude. It's basically just the screenwriter saying, "yeah, my story is full of plot holes, but that's because I'm too cool to be bothered to do it right, and you are such a nerd if you notice them". No, it's not cool, it's just lazy and downright insulting. If you can't be bothered to come up with self-consistent time travel rules for your movie, then why the fuck do you feel the need to use time travel as a plot device?
SPOILER:
And yes, I absolutely get it, Looper was about Joe's transformation from a selfish bastard into someone, who actually cares about other people, to the point that he would sacrifice himself for them. Too bad that the "cathartic" moment of self-sacrifice was previously undermined by the constant reminder that the elimination of a person, whose older self already traveled back in time, must be avoided at all cost, probably because it would create a time-paradox. By that time Joe kills himself, we already considered it as a solution, and we ruled it out, simply because the story told us that it's not a viable solution in the world of Looper, so it falls flat.
It also doesn't help that the premise is complete bullshit, but I won't go into it, in order to avoid TL;DR.
For "serious" movies that do time travel right, and as a result, the catharsis in the end works perfectly, see: 12 Monkeys and Butterfly Effect.
Of course, Back To The Future (despite being full of plot holes and inconsistencies) gets a free pass, because it's just a silly comedy, and doesn't pretend to be anything more.