BEFORE: Sometimes I feel a little bit like the main character in "Paycheck", in that I set up these chains of films to watch, laying out the connections I see between one film and another, and then I sometimes forget why I put this one next to that one. But I know I had a reason, and I gave myself little clues about it, and I get to discover them again as I go. Like I led myself here, back to this time-travel topic, and it's my way of telling myself this is exactly where I'm supposed to be right now. Linking from "Paycheck", Ben Affleck was notably in "Armageddon" with Bruce Willis (last seen in "The Whole Ten Yards".
THE PLOT: In 2074, when the mob wants to get rid of someone, the target is sent 30 years into the past, where a hired gun awaits. Someone like Joe, who one day learns the mob wants to 'close the loop' by transporting back Joe's future self.
AFTER: That plot description was all I knew about this film going in. Of course, I read reviews but I tried to take away as little additional information from them as possible, because I wanted this one to be really good. I enjoy time-travel movies, when they get it RIGHT, and I obsess over them when they don't.
So, a hit-man kills people sent from the future, and that's actually an original idea. Forensics are obviously so good in 2074 that the only way to dispose of evidence is to send it back in time to 2044, because someone in-between chose to invent a time machine instead of a molecular disintegrator. OK, I'm still with you - the criminals send someone they don't like back to before he was born, back to when he was a non-person, with no fingerprint records to match up to, and he gets killed there. Even if the body was found, it couldn't be identified. So far, so good.
And one day, the hit-man, or "looper" will end up killing his older self, and this means his job is over. The loop is closed in the future, he gets a big payday, and he gains the knowledge that he has exactly 30 years to live before he's sent back to be killed by his younger self. Still buying the premise, though I don't see exactly why the older self needs to die and the younger self is now out of work. But I'm still trying to play along.
NITPICK POINT: Well, kinda. I don't see why someone would take the job as a looper because it means that they WILL definitely die in 30 years' time. But it seems like this future is a somewhat dystopian one, and maybe the guarantee that they'll be alive for the next 30 years is a selling point.
Joe is a looper, and one day the inevitable (?) happens, his older self blinks back in time, and he has to kill him. But something's not right, the two have a fight, and I'm thinking I know how it ends. This is the point where the screenwriter should have stopped writing - I'm hooked, I'm along for the ride, nothing more needs to be added. It's an intriguing concept, there's conflict, there's time-travel. Just let their fight play out, close the loop and run the credits.
Now, when I say I like time-travel stories, I prefer closed loops. What does that mean? Guy goes back in time to save JFK, can't do it, history remains the same, guy goes back to the future and on with his life. Or guy goes back to save JFK, he does it, finds history ended up worse off, goes back again to prevent himself from changing time, succeeds, and history remains the same. Closed loop.
Ironically this film called "Looper" doesn't seem to understand the definition of a loop, or perhaps it does and then rejects it, because so much of what comes next defies logic or seems quite fuzzy. The older Joe has his memories, but they start to flicker and change if something different happens to young Joe. We can surmise from this that perhaps the past CAN be changed - certainly if young Joe were to kill old Joe, and then Joe grows older with the memory of killing his other self, once he goes back in time he would expect to die right away, and if this doesn't happen, then somehow time's been put on another track.
So now we've got a paradox, two histories (and the film makes this semi-clear by showing us both of them). Things have gotten fuzzy, and I'm now frustrated, and slightly intrigued. OK, film, you've won me back - this would be another good place for the screenwriter to stop, cut his losses, give me some kind of fight and a resolution, and call it a day.
But this didn't happen, either. The film then wandered through a bunch of other things, not all of which I care to disclose at this time, but they all served to make the timeline fuzzier and fuzzier, and there's that old quandary about killing baby Hitler again, and I was left with a resolution that was anything but resolute. On the whole, I'd rather watch "12 Monkeys" again, since I so preferred the way that time-travel plotline got resolved. Or "Frequency", "The Butterfly Effect" or "Back to the Future", three films that got away with changing the timeline, but still managed to entertain me.
Let me clear this up for any budding screenwriters who want to mess with a time-travel story. Let's say there's this guy, Fred, who had a car accident at age 20 and lost his right leg. When Fred is 50, he realizes his biggest regret is that he never became a professional dancer, so he invents a time machine, goes back and convinces 20-year-old Fred to ride the bus on that fateful day. The accident never occurs, Fred never loses his leg. Some films would show Fred at 50 suddenly gaining his leg back - and this is wrong, because for him, it was now never missing.
This is a classic paradox - if Fred succeeds in preventing the accident, he gains back his leg at age 20, 30, 40, AND 50, so depicting it suddenly "blinking" back into existence is wrong, and a sloppy shortcut. But preventing the loss of the leg also removes the desire to invent the time machine and the need to prevent the accident, so therefore Fred does NOT invent the time machine, does NOT prevent the accident, and then the accident happens again. Closed loop.
So, does Fred lose his leg, or not? Yes. And no. There are two tracks, one where he does and one where he doesn't (proven by the fact that old Fred doesn't have the memory of being visited by old Fred when he was young Fred), and they're destined to cycle around and around - at least that's the theory. Now some say this is proof that time travel will never really occur. I say we're all traveling through time, we just can't change the speed or the direction. So if you want to communicate with yourself over time, write yourself a note or keep a journal, just be aware it's a one-way conversation.
Also starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt (last seen in "50/50"), Emily Blunt (last seen in "The Five-Year Engagement"), Paul Dano (last seen in "Cowboys & Aliens"), Noah Segan, Jeff Daniels (last seen in "The Hours"), Garret Dillahunt, Piper Perabo.
RATING: 5 out of 10 cornfields
No comments:
Post a Comment