94% Looper

All Critics (206) | Top Critics (41) | Fresh (193) | Rotten (13)

The reasoning behind all this may not reward prolonged inspection, but Johnson is smart enough to press onward with his plot, leaving us with neither the time nor the desire to linger over the logic ...

Writer-director Rian Johnson establishes himself as an original talent who clearly believes storytelling must prevail.

A mind-bending ride that is not afraid to slow down now and again, to explore themes of regret and redemption, solitude and sacrifice, love and loss. It's a movie worth seeing and, perhaps, going back to see again.

Looper has more heart than Brick and the 2008 con-man flick The Brothers Bloom. Both fine achievements, they could also be described as viscerally cerebral.

I'm a sucker for time-travel movies.

Looper felt to me like a maddening near-miss ...

It's complex enough that sci-fi fans can dig deeper over multiple viewings, but thrilling enough that casual viewers can take it all in with one watch.

...an above-average sci-fi tale.

Rian Johnson makes a loud, dark, highly stylized film that looks good but whose ideas do not really bear close examination.

Time travel makes sense in Looper because writer-director Rian Johnson keeps it on a short leash, not requiring enough manufactured logic to trip over later.

I don't know where you guys found that kid... Was it the same lab where they grew the Fannings?

Besides a challenging time-travel premise, a dark sense of humor, and some thrilling action scenes, Looper has the kind emotional weight that you wouldn't expect.

... Writer-director Rian Johnson never stops working, using the science-fiction setup and trappings to delve into the characters and give us a story with some real meat.

You don't need time-travel to spot a future cult classic.

It's just a shame that a smart, thoughtful movie like this is all too often the exception to mainstream sci/fi action fare rather than the rule.

Despite some big set pieces, it's the smaller emotional moments that get us thinking

For a time travel thriller, this film is remarkably free of head-scratching anomalies in the plot, instead concentrating on richly developed characters and goosebump-inducing action

Nothing less than an exceptionally satisfying piece of futuristic ingenuity with a great corps of actors. It will knock you out -- in any time zone.

A scintillating neo-noir gem of existential quandaries and inescapable fatalism.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, the hardest working man in Hollywood for 2012, continues his journey to the A-List.

Best stay focused and avoid a loo break!

This all sounds a little too much like The Terminator, but Johnson keeps things moving and rings ingenious changes on familiar material ...

It might be confusing in its time-travel material, but is both entertaining and somewhat challenging by being so action-packed and loopy.

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Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/looper/

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