Film

Time to kill

Looper

You take a big risk when you cast Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a young Bruce Willis. You also take a big risk when you cast the suddenly inconsistent Bruce Willis in anything nowadays. Those risks pay off in super-mega jackpot fashion in writer-director Rian Johnson’s brilliant and taut Looper, one of the best time travel epics to ever hit the screen. Levitt plays Joe, a loner living in 2042 who has actually been sent back from the year 2072 to kill people that organized crime wishes to dispose of. He stands in a field with his gun aimed at a tarp, waiting for the his hooded victim to zap back from the future and receive a very rude greeting. There’s a big twist to having this job, nicknamed “looper.” The reason you are a looper is because, eventually, your “loop” will be closed. That person you will dispatch will one day be you, and a big chunk of gold will be strapped to your dead back to make the 30 years leading up to your “loop” being closed a little more pleasurable. Still, that’s a pretty shitty job when you get down to it, and that job becomes shittier when Joe’s future self (Willis) gets sent back, and he’s not particularly ready to get shot by himself while on bended knees. Johnson doesn’t go the Back to the Future route when it comes to people meeting their future selves in the present. The universe doesn’t unravel, but Joe’s present life most certainly does. Future Joe has an agenda, and Present Joe knows that he’s the sort of tenacious bastard who will do anything to achieve that agenda because, well, he’s him. It makes for a very interesting rivalry.

There’s a scene where the two face off in a diner, and I’m going to go ahead and call this scene one of 2012’s greatest film moments. I love the look of 30 years into our future depicted in this movie. It’s as realistic and viable a future world as I have ever seen in a science fiction film. The cities are at once spiraling, sprawling and dilapidated. I bought the world Johnson depicts here. And I bought Gordon-Levitt as a youngerby Bob Grimm version of Willis, and Willis as a future version of Gordon-Levitt. Gordon-Levitt is bgrimm@ wearing makeup to slightly alter his appear-newsreview.com ance, but it’s his slightly smirking demeanor that screams Willis. He doesn’t overdo it with the smirk, nor does he overdo it with the growly Willis vocal inflections. Willis, who is having a mixed year with5 direct-to-video crap and masterpieces like this and Moonrise Kingdom, looks totally invested in this picture. He’s looked like he is sleepwalking through films in recent years—Cop Out could be his very worst performance—but he is old-school, awesome Willis this time out. Jeff Daniels delivers some of his best work in years as Abe, a crime boss sent back from the future to make sure things don’t get out of hand. The great thing about Daniels as a ruthless crime boss is that he plays him the way we generally know Daniels—as a mild mannered, warm, gentlemanly sort. It makes the moments when Abe goes off genuinely frightening. For a change, Emily Blunt gets a good role as Sara, a farm-dwelling mother looking to protect her moody son (the amazing child actor Pierce Gagnon) and herself from vagrants. She has more than vagrancy to contend with when the Joes come calling. Gagnon has an arsenal of facial expressions that would make a young Haley Joel Osment cry with envy. Johnson has made a movie in which it’s virtually impossible to guess what’s going to happen next. You’ll walk in with a general idea of the goings on, but your jaw will be agape with surprise by the time this thing wraps. It’s a true mind-bender, and it’s one of the year’s best films. Ω

Hold on, there’s a wasp on your knee. 3Dredd 3D This reboot, with Karl Urban putting on the helmet and keeping it on for the duration of the film, is a vast improvement over the embarrassing Sylvester Stallone effort. Urban plays the title character, a generally angry man living in a post-apocalyptic world where policeman are also the judge, jurors and executioners of criminals on the spot. When he and a trainee (Olivia Thirbly) investigate a homicide, they wind up trapped in a building with a crazed drug lord (Lena Headey) trying to take them down. Director Pete Travis has made a grim, very violent film. Because the drug in play here is something called SLO-MO, a drug that makes the brain feel as if it has been slowed down, much of the violence is depicted in slow motion. Yep, slow-motion shots of bullets passing through faces. It’s a visual feast for the eyes, and Urban is perfect in the part.

4End of Watch Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña shine in this absorbing cop drama from writer-director David Ayer (Harsh Times). They play Los Angeles police officers who go above and beyond the call of duty, and sometimes bend the rules just a little bit. Their willingness to put their necks on the line eventually leads to trouble with a drug cartel, and their lives are threatened. Gyllenhaal and Peña make for a great screen duo. The movie is often very funny simply because of the way they interact. Ayer uses the old “cops videotaping themselves on the job” gimmick a little bit, but it never becomes too distracting. He also fills his movie with great action and chase sequences. The movie is a shocker in many ways, and truly makes you think about what cops go through on a daily basis. Nice supporting performances from Anna Kendrick and America Ferrera.

4Finding Nemo 3D Nine years after its original release, this Pixar charmer comes back to screens with a nice 3-D presentation. Honestly, I felt like I was watching it for the first time. The Pixar films are primed for 3-D. The movie looks like it was always intended to be this way. Albert Brooks voices Marlin, a paranoid clown fish who loses his kid Nemo to human divers. While Nemo sits in a dentist’s aquarium, Marlin frantically races across the ocean with new friend Dory (Ellen DeGeneres) in tow. For me, DeGeneres is the true star of this movie. Her voice work will always stand as a favorite cartoon character of mine, especially when she speaks whale. Other voice actors include Willem Dafoe as a growling angelfish and Brad Garrett as a puffer fish. I know I sound a bit clichéd saying this, but this is a real treat for the entire family.

2Hotel Transylvania This animated take on Dracula (Adam Sandler) and other big monsters like Frankenstein’s monster (Kevin James) and the Werewolf (Steve Buscemi) has a fun setup and some great gags. But its overall feeling is that of total mania in that it barely slows down long enough for you to take it in. It’s often unnecessarily spastic in telling the tale of a nervous Dracula dealing with his daughter on her 118th birthday—young in vampire years). A human (Andy Samberg) shows up at the title place, a building Dracula created to keep dangerous humans away, and his daughter (Selena Gomez) falls for him. The overall story is hard to digest, but there are some great moments, such as every time the vampires turn into bats (cute) and a werewolf baby knowing what plane flight somebody is taking by smelling his shirt (unbelievably cute). Even with the cute moments, there were too many times when I just wanted to look away because the animation was far too frantic. 3The Master Joaquin Phoenix plays Freddie, a troubled World War II vet who returns from a stint with the Navy a little messed up in the head. He’s having trouble finding his place in the world, and he’s constantly swigging lethal alcohol drinks made of anything he can find in the medicine cabinet or tool shed. He’s prone to major mood swings and violence. His relationships and jobs aren’t working out, and his drinking is getting him into a lot of trouble. He winds up a stowaway on a luxury yacht where he meets Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman), leader of The Cause, a cult-like movement with more than a few similarities to Scientology. The two wind up strangely dependent on one another as they both battle different demons. Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (There Will Be Blood) the film features great performances, but also has a vibe of been there, done that. It’s worth seeing for the Phoenix-Hoffman fireworks, but not one of Anderson’s best.

4ParaNorman Here’s a stop-animation movie that isn’t afraid to be creepy for the kids. Norman (voice of Kodi Smit-McPhee) can see dead people and has premonitions, for which he gets picked on at school and yelled at by his parents. As it turns out, he’s the only one who can save the town from a curse involving zombies and witches. Directors Chris Butler and Sam Fell have put together a great-looking movie. And Butler’s script pushes the limit of the PG rating to the point where adults might be surprised by what they have taken their kids to see. As for this being too scary for kids, let me tell you that the kids were screaming with delight at my screening. They love this stuff. Also features the voices of John Goodman, Leslie Mann, Casey Affleck and Christopher Mintz-Plasse. One of the year’s best animated films.

2The Possession As far as demon possession movies go, I’d have to count this as one of the better offerings in recent years. That still doesn’t make it all that good. Based on a “true story”— bullshit!—it stars Jeffrey Dean Morgan as a basketball coach who moves his two daughters into a new house. They go to a yard sale, where the youngest daughter (an impressive Natasha Calis) grabs a mysterious box that has dead moths and spooky stuff in it. She winds up getting possessed by a demon, requiring the help of a Hasidic Jew instead of Roman Catholic priests for a change. And, of course, that Hasidic Jew is none other than Matisyahu. Director Ole Bornedal provides some genuinely creepy moments—I especially liked the very spooky CAT scan—but he also provides a little too much bad melodrama that drags the film down. Still, Morgan and Calis are good here, and the possession portions of the movie do have a decent freak-out factor. (Love those hands coming out of mouths!) A hearty “Screw you!” to the dumbass who decided to make this a PG13 affair. This one should’ve shot for an R.

1Resident Evil: Retribution In the fifth chapter of the popular zombie franchise, things get so sloppy, disorganized and frantic, it’s as if one of the T-Virus zombies bit the movie on the leg and it got all crazy and infected. This is the third installment directed by the much-maligned Paul W.S. Anderson, who has been involved with the franchise from the beginning in various capacities. He directed the first movie, took a couple of movies off, and returned for 2010’s lousy Afterlife, and now this even worse monstrosity. He has the dubious distinction of having directed the best and worst films in the franchise. Milla Jovovich returns as Alice, zombie killer, and her efforts are all for naught. The movie makes little to no sense, the action is haphazard and clumsy, and this franchise seriously needs to call it quits. It got off to an OK start with the first two films, but things have deteriorated mightily since then.

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