93% Looper

All Critics (228) | Top Critics (41) | Fresh (213) | Rotten (15)

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 ...

While it sometimes feels like it's trying to do much, Looper manages to be a creditable and exciting sci-fi flick that homages the past while carving out a unique identity.

Much as he did in Brick, Johnson creates a carefully drawn world in Looper that exists by its own particular set of rules.

... has an irresistible energy and a don't-give-a-damn unpredictability ...

Beautifully crafted, acted and written.

Anchors high-concept thrills and captivating ideas in a world of challenging morality and intricate personal consequences.

Truly imaginative but all the twists and turns make the overall film difficult to follow. Plus Gordon-Levitt has not reached leading man status yet.

Kind of a reverse-"Terminator" without any of James Cameron's wit (or wisdom),

An endlessly creative mind-blowing film that captures everything right about the movie going experience. Johnson conjures up the most imaginative action/science fiction film since 'Inception.'

Part science fiction, part mob movie, and with a nice infusion of dark comedy at just the right moments, Looper is Johnson's best movie yet, and manages to be hugely entertaining, affecting, and thought-provoking.

takes us far beyond the film's high-concept premise into the kind of emotional terrain that too often escapes even the best genre filmmakers

Doesn't quite reach the heights of the lofty ideals that it so ardently seeks to expound, but makes up for this with the sheer thrill of the journey Rian Johnson takes us on.

Ingenious with a fine performance by Emily Blunt, but far too much cold-blooded violence.

Engaging, exciting, and successfully cross-breeding elements of Terminator and even Pet Sematary, Looper is a solid work of palatable science-fiction.

Looper's super. An action-thriller that bothers to have a brain.

Looper may not take us back to the future as satisfyingly as Robert Zemeckis' Marty McFly trilogy or James Cameron's Terminator franchise, but writer-director Rian Johnson does enough right to all but guarantee that he has a future cult film on the books.

The best time travel films play on emotion rather than logic, and once Looper realises this and drops all the tail-chasing about how time travel works it settles into the engrossing action/drama about destiny it should have been from the get go.

Has more depth, smarts, and heart than the usual sci-fi bluster.

A just about brilliant sci-fi crime-drama-thriller mostly set in the years 2044 and 2074. Rian Johnson is a rare director who creates entertainment with depth.

The key to enjoying the gruesome violence mixed with a healthy potion of emotional depth rarely found in this genre is to not dwell on the fiction in the science.

Sometimes time travel is just used a cheap device in movies to make them seem different; this is not one of those films. It's genuinely unique and fresh.

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

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