LOOPER
I love action films and more so scifi movies. The movie LOOPER is one that can be considered as a science fiction movie with action and drama in between. It is a great and entertaining film and one that would probably have a cult following in the years to come similar to the movie Blade Runner where until now people are still asking questions and trying to figure out the whole concept of the entire movie.
The movie LOOPER is about a hired assassin. They are extensions of the mobs and gangs of the future, where 30 years from now time travel will be discovered and will be immediately banned. But it will be heavily utilized by the organized crimes in the sense that when they want to get rid of people, they would send them back to time to get executed by their “loopers” who are also the ones who dispose of the bodies.
The main twist of the movie is with the fact that the LOOPER ends up shooting himself and closed the “loop” of time on himself by eliminating himself. He then lives his next thirty years traveling the world and also in the process falling in love with someone. What’s interesting is that in this particular setting, he decides to fight back and goes back in time to try and save the one he loves from getting killed in the future, seeking the assistance of his own self to achieve this.
It’s never been explored in science fiction movies that involves time travel of how the younger person would reaction differently in meeting their older selves and how it would impact them. Most of the time, they would honor meeting their older selves or would pay attention to the wisdom of their own selves like in the movie, TIMECOP which is one of the worst time travel action movies of all time, but could be a great remake in the years to come. In this film, the difference is stark as the younger looper in present day earth knows that he is talking to his older self, he still thinks that his life has nothing to do with the future version of himself that is before his very eyes. He tries his best to still kill his future version, but even in future version is way better, faster and more intelligent than he could possibly hope for. It’s also interesting because the concept of “memory” is explored too as the older version of the looper starts having new memories that he has never remembered and is starting to lose the memories he had such as the memory of meeting his wife for the first time.
The main theme of this movie is no different than any time traveling theme in that it desires to either keep the status quo or to make changes in order to save the future. The film explores what great lengths a person would go through to save his own life and how another person would do anything to lay his life for another person’s future.
Aside from the very real drama and great acting portrayed by Bruce Willis and his bouts of conscience every now and then during the movie, most of the pacing of the movie is adequate enough to keep a person reasonably entertained. The end makes one wonder though, if the sacrifice that the characters have done made any impact at all as it neither explores the future of the remaining cast.
In the end, it is not the eloquence of time travel and how it is being utilized that is explored in this film. It is the concept of memory and how memories shape the very lives of people. It is the memory of the older Looper that drove him to travel back in time to save his very future and the future of his loved one. It is the memory of the future and knowing he had a future that the present day looper was out to kill his older self. It is the memory of his real mother that made the child desire to be better than himself. It is the memory of losing a sister than made the woman want to become a better mother. For if time erases all memories of the future through muddling the past, then in the end there really is no future at all and only the present to look forward to by living in the moment.
