Looper

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Re: Looper

#31 Post by SocialFlutterBy » Fri Sep 28, 2012 2:51 pm

AYBG wrote:Winners list...

Congrats to Kevin and Celine!! Anyone else we know up there?

congrats to both FMUK winners :D well done x
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Re: Looper

#32 Post by Jayman » Sat Sep 29, 2012 1:47 am

Talk about a massive disappointment. A great premise let down by a never ending series of missed opportunities.

The first half is an energetic, thrill-a-minute sci-fi spectacle. The second half, by contrast, a bore. Not a relative bore -- just a plain outright, ponderous mess of a bore. As much as I love Emily Blunt, as soon as she appears, this movie takes a sharp hand-break turn into dullsville and never quite recovers. By the time we reach the climax, it feels like as if we've just sat through a 150 minute long episode of The X-Files. The sad truth is, including the end-credits, Looper barely even hits 118 minutes...and that's never a good sign.

While I do appreciate Rian Johnson's attempt at tackling several complex moral dilemmas, he desperately needs to take a few pointers from Duncan Jones on carving a narrative in an engaging, entertaining manner, especially when the inspiration for the backdrop seems to be Little House on the Prarie. The make-up on Joseph Gordon-Levitt's face too was pretty horrendous. As much as I tried, I just could not take my eyes of his enormous eyebrows. And while he and Bruce Willis seemed to be portraying the same character, neither possessed any common personality traits whatsoever. They could have used Arnold Schwarzenegger and gotten a better result.

Ok so that's the bad. The good is that even with the poor exposition of the second half, the movie was unpredictable from start to finish. I never knew where it was going and what it was building up to. In this day and age, that's a tremendous feat. Granted, where it did eventually end up was utterly disappointing to say the least but hey, at least it tried something different.

So that's an A for effort but just an adequate C for delivery.
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Re: Looper

#33 Post by Celini » Sat Sep 29, 2012 3:51 pm

After several attempts to catch this earlier I finally made it to my local cinema... a grand 5 of us in screen 1, on the day post release. I doubt this is gonna wow the box office!

So here it is, I am not as disappointed as some of you guys were but there is still few things that did not quite work for me! I completely agree with the above comments on JGL prosthetics (have we ever seen a worst year for prosthetics?) and the killing of the pace of the movie half way through and really wonder how that had happened! Surely there was better way to pieces together? It looked to me that 2 screenplays had been written and they've decided to paste them together post production!

Anyway my major concern was a massive plot hole that came up very early on and I just could not wipe it off my mind...
[spoiler]If the Loopers have been created because you could not get rid of someone in the future, how did the mob justify to kill Joe's wife in the first place???[/spoiler]

I was still quite entertained thorough and I liked the ending, but I can see lots of people not happy with this either!

7/10
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Re: Looper

#34 Post by prettyxcool » Sun Sep 30, 2012 12:05 am

I was invited to a BAFTA screening of Looper tonight.

What a brilliant film, not at all what I expected, as a time travel sci fi. It is very, very clever. A great story and well acted by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis and Emily Blunt. The pace does slow down in the middle, but merely to juggle the different aspects of the story.

I thought Joseph GL has really caught Bruce's mannerisms and voice, underneath all that heavy makeup and prosthetics. Bruce Willis does Bruce Willis so well too, and in one scene he even sends himself up, with great humour. I loved it! Emily Blunt is always watchable, and the young actor, Pierce Gagnon, is also brilliant with some tense and funny scenes with Joseph GL. Great chemistry between all the actors. An original script. Fantastic ending. I was entertained. 10/10
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Re: Looper

#35 Post by AYBG » Sun Sep 30, 2012 1:46 am

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Re: Looper

#36 Post by tsoiboy » Sun Sep 30, 2012 11:25 pm

Saw this at Hackney Picturehouse thanks to hdaniels82 and Celini.

The film screening was sponsored by Stella Artois and it started great with a pint of the stuff.

A film of two halves. The first is an intense roller coaster ride setting the scene of the fast living loopers in the not too distant dystopian future. The second is a slow paced chase film trying to fight the future. Joseph Gordon Levitt does a good Bruce Willis impersonation. There are enough twists for the film to be interesting though I did find the ending almost predictable but was surprised at the end. The look and story of the film was great. Who would have thought a Mazda MX5 be a prestige car in the future. It had all the right ingredients for a spectacular film but just fall shorts where for some reasons you just don't empathise with the leads and hence immerse yourself into the film and the experience.

Entertaining still but with high expectations so high it was bound to fall short.

8.75/10
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Re: Looper

#37 Post by TheyCallMeMrGlass » Mon Oct 01, 2012 3:31 pm

Celini wrote:After several attempts to catch this earlier I finally made it to my local cinema... a grand 5 of us in screen 1, on the day post release. I doubt this is gonna wow the box office!

So here it is, I am not as disappointed as some of you guys were but there is still few things that did not quite work for me! I completely agree with the above comments on JGL prosthetics (have we ever seen a worst year for prosthetics?) and the killing of the pace of the movie half way through and really wonder how that had happened! Surely there was better way to pieces together? It looked to me that 2 screenplays had been written and they've decided to paste them together post production!

Anyway my major concern was a massive plot hole that came up very early on and I just could not wipe it off my mind...
[spoiler]If the Loopers have been created because you could not get rid of someone in the future, how did the mob justify to kill Joe's wife in the first place???[/spoiler]

I was still quite entertained thorough and I liked the ending, but I can see lots of people not happy with this either!

7/10
[spoiler]they didnt justify it, it was a very trigger-happy reactionary shot, a mess up. That's my interpretation of it :).[/spoiler]





I actually went to see it again on Friday, this time without the initial overhype and anticipations. I enjoyed it second time around and will still rate it an 8/10. I didnt learn more from second viewing but instead I appreciated it more for what the film is. I do get the whole picture, all the fluctuations and iterations of each time loop and how a change affects the next iteration. Its brilliantly woven actually. I also felt a stronger emotional undercurrent of the performances this time and I think I may have been too harsh about the dialogue, its not punchy or sparkling but I realise that it wouldnt be appropriate for the the mood the director is striving for.

[spoiler]I had forgotten to mention the little boy in my previous review, that's one good little actor there, cute one moment, tugs your heart in another and then frightens the bejesus out of me the next with his Damien-like expressions! He's good and pivotal to the whole plot.[/spoiler]
Last edited by TheyCallMeMrGlass on Mon Oct 01, 2012 3:46 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Looper

#38 Post by TheyCallMeMrGlass » Mon Oct 01, 2012 3:36 pm

Jayman wrote:Talk about a massive disappointment. A great premise let down by a never ending series of missed opportunities.

The first half is an energetic, thrill-a-minute sci-fi spectacle. The second half, by contrast, a bore. Not a relative bore -- just a plain outright, ponderous mess of a bore. As much as I love Emily Blunt, as soon as she appears, this movie takes a sharp hand-break turn into dullsville and never quite recovers. By the time we reach the climax, it feels like as if we've just sat through a 150 minute long episode of The X-Files. The sad truth is, including the end-credits, Looper barely even hits 118 minutes...and that's never a good sign.

While I do appreciate Rian Johnson's attempt at tackling several complex moral dilemmas, he desperately needs to take a few pointers from Duncan Jones on carving a narrative in an engaging, entertaining manner, especially when the inspiration for the backdrop seems to be Little House on the Prarie. The make-up on Joseph Gordon-Levitt's face too was pretty horrendous. As much as I tried, I just could not take my eyes of his enormous eyebrows. And while he and Bruce Willis seemed to be portraying the same character, neither possessed any common personality traits whatsoever. They could have used Arnold Schwarzenegger and gotten a better result.

Ok so that's the bad. The good is that even with the poor exposition of the second half, the movie was unpredictable from start to finish. I never knew where it was going and what it was building up to. In this day and age, that's a tremendous feat. Granted, where it did eventually end up was utterly disappointing to say the least but hey, at least it tried something different.

So that's an A for effort but just an adequate C for delivery.
You are the only person that seems to share my thoughts on Levitt's attempt at impersonating Bruce Willis. He's doesnt impersonate him at all. He is impersonating Robert De Niro. In fact, if Robert De Niro played old Joe, then the the young/old Joe dynamic would have been far more realistic. I was feeling very lonely with this opinion until now, thanks!
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Re: Looper

#39 Post by steve9872 » Mon Oct 01, 2012 9:47 pm

I know why people didn't like the ending. It generates a paradox which deletes the entire movie.

[spoiler]We know that anything that happens to the younger self also happens to the older self so when the younger self kills himself to stop his older self, everything the older self did no longer happened - including giving the younger self a reason to kill himself. :wall: :wall: :wall: Hence the entire movie wipes itself out.[/spoiler]
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Re: Looper

#40 Post by prettyxcool » Tue Oct 02, 2012 12:12 am

steve9872 wrote:I know why people didn't like the ending. It generates a paradox which deletes the entire movie.

[spoiler]We know that anything that happens to the younger self also happens to the older self so when the younger self kills himself to stop his older self, everything the older self did no longer happened - including giving the younger self a reason to kill himself. :wall: :wall: :wall: Hence the entire movie wipes itself out.[/spoiler]
[spoiler]Also, if you can get rid of your future self by killing yourself today, why not kill the loopers today so they don't have to round them up in 30 years and send them back. :D :D

If I start to analyse it, it really does my head in like Inception with all the layers! If you think about it too much, none of it really adds up, but it was enjoyable anyway![/spoiler]
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2014 - 132 seen (26 premieres and 7 Gala Screenings). Also 18 misc. free events/concerts
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