93% Looper

All Critics (194) | Top Critics (41) | Fresh (181) | 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 ...

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.

"Looper" is frenetic, loud, creative, entertaining and, of course, unbelievable.

Featuring fantastic performances from the entire cast, absorbing cinematography, and one of the most unique concepts for a film in quite some time, Looper is one of the most creative, intelligent, and unpredictable films of the year.

... re-establishes the (time travel) genre in a new and fresh way. And seriously, how cool is it to have an actual blunderbus for an assassin's weapon?

Exciting and engrossing futuristic thriller - with a solid payoff.

Time travel is tricky. Even more tricky than talking time is reviewing Looper and not giving away the tasty time treats awaiting serious and non-serious sci-fi fans.

Well-constructed narrative, looping back on itself, spiraling willingly into its own paradoxes and dealing with all the weird overlaps in a way few movies dare to bother with.

A sci-fi action thriller that's smart, complicated, and that actually follows through on plot twists guaranteed to make the audience uneasy.

Johnson's direction builds on the optimistic tone that is inherent in the best time-travel stories: the idea that there are always second chances to fix past mistakes.

Like any good piece of speculative fiction, "Looper" can't be boiled down into a short plot blurb... There hasn't been a movie quite like it.

Keeps you mentally hopping, daring you to guess where it is headed, then cheerfully pulling the rug out from under you each time.

this is nothing less than a consideration of how at every moment, every person on the planet is making one of an infinite number of choices that will lead to an infinite number of possibilities. It's enough to make the head spin. And it does. Sublimely.

More Critic Reviews

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

juan williams victor martinez alcatraz cruise ship martin luther king jr. zappos