I went to the cinema for the first time in ages to see Looper. It’s a science fiction time travel film from director Rian Johnson, whose previous films Brick and The Brothers Bloom are both excellent. So based on that it was a film that I’ve been very excited about since I first heard of it awhile ago now, and the trailer that I saw for it only heightened my anticipation. I did try to avoid spoilers though, so I didn’t know exactly what to expect.

The film is set approximately thirty years from now, in a rather grim near-future version of America. Time travel hasn’t been invented, but it will be in another thirty years time. Then it is outlawed and used only by criminal gangs who exploit the technology to execute people by having them sent back in time to be shot and disposed of by hired hit men known as loopers. These loopers are paid well but as part of the deal they know that eventually their future self will be sent back for them to kill, known as closing the loop. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a looper called Joe, while Bruce Willis plays the future version of Joe. When future Joe is sent back he manages to escape and plans to change the future to prevent young Joe from closing the loop. Whereas young Joe wants to prevent him from doing this, because he doesn’t want his present life to be disrupted.

I really liked the movie, I thought it was excellent. I generally love time travel stories, and I thought this was a very good one, very cleverly done without being overly complex. As well as the story being a good one, I also thought that Joseph Gordon-Levitt was brilliant, even looking a bit weird due to the make up job to make him appear more like Bruce Willis. Rian Johnson once again proved to be a great director and a master of yet another genre. Anyway, I don’t really know what else to say, I’m rubbish at writing reviews and I don’t want to just pile on the superlatives. But as I said, I really enjoyed it, it was great and I’d recommend it, especially to people who like time travel films like I do.