OK I need you to sit down and brace yourself. Here’s a shocker: There are actually films other than Prometheus, Dark Knight Rises, Avengers and The Hobbit being released this year. I know it’s hard to believe, but it’s true, I assure you.
One of these mythical “other films” is Rian Johnson’s time travelling action flick, Looper, which sees Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a mob hitman who has to kill his future self, Bruce Willis. And this weekend at Wondercon, we got our first look at Gordon-Levitt as the younger version of Willis, and it looks really uncanny.According to Gordon-Levitt, it took 3 hours of makeup a day to achieve the look, and he also extensively studied Willis (No dirty sophomoric jokes, please) so as to not mimic him, but rather create a character that will eventually grow up to be him. The transformation (at least in still image form) is pretty remarkable.
The film is set in a future where time-travel is possible but highly illegal. The mob though – those dastardly rapscallions – make use of the technology by sending prospective victims bound and gagged into the past, where a special hitman called a “looper”, welcomes them with a complimentary cocktail and a bullet to the head. (OK, the cocktail bit might not be true, but I have hope. I love tiny umbrellas.) It’s the perfect system as there are no bodies to get rid of in the future, and in the past, the victims don’t necessarily exist yet. But when a looper named Joe (Gordon-Levitt) recognizes that next target (Willis) is actually his future self, it creates some problems. Talk about an identity complex.
There was a trailer also aired at Wondercon, but unfortunately it has not been made available for public viewing yet. Those lucky enough to be in attendance have been pretty positive about what they’ve seen thus far though. It’s apparently all looking very slick and polished, with some Christopher Nolan comparisons already thrown into the mix. This buoys my spirits as I’ve really been looking forward to it ever since I finally got my hands on Rian Johnson’s full length directorial debut, Brick, (also starring Gordon-Levitt) which about as good of a modern crime thriller as you could get.
You can bet your temporally displaced behind that I’ll be posting that trailer as soon as we get it. In the meantime though, you can pass the time by watching Johnson and Gordon-Levitt at Wondercon discussing time travel in movies:
Last Updated: March 19, 2012
Darryn_Bonthuys
March 19, 2012 at 12:01
Dammit, I misread that as Hooper. Kinda sad now, although this also sounds awesome.
Tracy Benson
March 19, 2012 at 12:14
Time-travel paradoxes like that make my head explode. You can’t go back to kill someone in the past, they won’t exist in the present and give you a reason to kill them. The movie better have a damn good explanation for that.
Ah who am I kidding? Joseph Gordon-Levitt? Bruce Willis? I’m in.
Kervyn Cloete
March 19, 2012 at 12:21
No, they’re not travelling back into the past to kill people, they are sending future people into the past to get killed there. Just a fancy way of hiding the body really. No time paradoxes at all.
What makes this premise very intriguing is that the older Joe (Willis) knows exactly what the younger Joe (Gordon-Levitt) is going to do to try and kill him, because he already tried it 30 yrs previously.
Tracy Benson
March 19, 2012 at 13:28
Ohhhh, misread it. Thanks. And that does make it interesting, because whatever younger Joe does, he should know that older Joe knows what he’s going to do before he does it.