Reviews Film / Looper

It'd be fine it if wasn't for the time travel.

You'll notice most of my reviews are far too short and usually only deal with one element of the subject. That's usually because I only talk about the element that really matters to me or hasn't been mentioned in other reviews.

This element's one issue is that it's time travel is nonsensical, which doesn't fly in the kind of movie they've made. Essentially time travel is just an excuse for the story, but since the movie feels very real the very Back to the Future style time travel just doesn't work.

I don't know how you'll feel about it, but for me it was a deal breaker.

Edit: Okay, so something a little more useful.

The movie's approach to time travel is a lot like Back to the Future, in which changes to the present effect characters from the future. There is a scene where a future character runs away and his younger character is maimed, almost to death to retroactively maim him.

This makes no sense, since he came back from the future looking just fine. If he was maimed in his past why was he able to come back in a fully functioning form? Again, this kind of time travel would fly in Back to the Future, since that movie had the advantage of being a comedic and light film. In Looper, with it's gritty story and serious tone? It just makes me scratch my head.

There's even a scene where one character basically dismisses explaining the time travel element. The time travel was an excuse to have a battle between a younger self and a future self. It gave us some fantastic character development, but the plot is full of Fridge Logic plot holes.