Send you for a loop.
The Film
If you are like me and you often look for something on VUDU or Hulu to watch at 3:00 a.m., you tend to gravitate towards the low-budget action films starring your favorite WWE superstar because it's too tough mentally to watch anything with a real plot at that time of night. Unfortunately, action films have become the graveyard of former athletes (everyone except for The Rock, who could even be good on Downton Abbey) and there rarely exists anything cerebral inside of them. Even the bad guys are not that clever anymore, which diminishes the film from the very beginning. Alan Rickman made an entire career out of Die Hard's Hans Gruber, but that type of performance is rare. So where does that leave a film such as Looper?
An action film it may be, but Looper reminded this reviewer of Blade Runner -- and that's never a bad comparison. The future is bleak, so it's hard not to draw comparisons between the two films. Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars as Joe, a 21st-century hitman (a "looper"), who jumps back and forth in time to dispose of those who stand in the way of their criminal employers. Time travel, however, is illegal, so there is always a catch to the entire process.
Loopers are well paid, but the catch is that they have to kill their future selves. When Joe has to kill himself (played by Bruce Willis), something goes wrong. The two characters then end up on the run from Abe (Jeff Daniels), who doesn't react well when his loopers go off the reservation.
Gordon-Levitt isn't all that recognizable, due to some incredible prosthetics, but he really takes a giant leap with this film; even further than his performance in The Dark Knight Rises. It's clear from audience reaction that he's about to become the next major star in Hollywood.
Looper, unlike the rest of the action genre, actually makes you think. The bloody action (and there is an abundance of it) doesn't detract from the plot at all and only helps to propel it along. Perhaps, Disney should have hired Rian Johnson to direct the next Star Wars episode, because he clearly undestands that action without a point or characters worth investing in is nothing more than a series of stunts.
You don't have to travel back in time to get another view of this movie. Just click to check out Karen Dahlstrom's theatrical review of Looper.
The Picture
Minus a few scenes where black levels are a tad soft (which I suspect was on purpose), the Blu-ray transfer is as close to perfection as I have watched in many months. Shadow detail is excellent throughout and skin tones are dead-on. The image is crisp and clean with a beauitful layer of grain, which really makes this film pop on a properly calibrated HDTV or projector. The overall level of detail is just superb; it's hard not to start looking deeper into what's on the screen. Color accuracy is really impressive (look at how natural the greens are) and it's hard to find anything about this transfer that isn't reference quality. Whatever they are smoking at Sony... pass it around.
The Sound
I remember when tradeshow demo material used to almost always include another Bruce Willis film (If you have to ask, you're clearly not a fan of alien opera), so it should not come as any major bolt to the brain to discover that Looper is as good as it gets from a sound perspective. The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround mix is aggressive, taut and potent enough to knock you out of your shoes if you have a subwoofer from the likes of SVS, JL Audio, or Paradigm. Dialogue is crisp and intelligible throughout and the rear channels might ask for a night off after the workout from this film. This is not the kind of mix you listen to at half-volume just because the kids are asleep. Send them to Grandma and crank it until your loudspeakers say, "Mr. Carson wears pink knickers." It's reference quality bass material and punchy through the midrange.
The Extras
Audio commentaries are generally hit or miss, which is sometimes dependent on who gets selected to do it. Bruce Willis must have been busy shooting Die Hard 5, because he's missing in action on this one. Not to worry though, because director Rian Johnson, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Emily Blunt are more than capable of keeping it both technical and interesting at the same time. The film's visual effects get a thorough explanation, as does the production process and the mood on set. Don't adjust your headphones, however. Blunt arrives late for the party.
There are also close to 37 minutes of deleted scenes and while not all of them are that great, you get a sense for what the film could have looked like had they not been left on the cutting room floor. Johnson's editing of the final cut (under two hours) make it a much tighter film.
A featurette on the science of time travel is interesting, but unlikely to increase the value of the DeLorean rusting in your garage.
Fans of movie soundtracks will certainly find the three-part featurette on the scoring of Looper quite worthwhile. John Williams might be the king, but there is a new generation of composers creating some great movie music right now and that includes Nathan Johnson (Brick, The Brothers Bloom).
Final Thoughts
Looper is ultimately an action film, but a far more cerebral one than Hollywood usually poops out. A solid script never hurts, and director Rian Johnson gets two great performances out of Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis to keep this film interesting from beginning to end. Sony seems to have the magic touch at the moment, as this is one of the finest looking and most potent sounding Blu-ray releases floating around. In a year where The Dark Knight and The Avengers absolutely ruled, that's no small feat indeed. Highly recommended.
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