Looper by Rian Johnson (2012)

Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Bruce Willis, Bruce Willis plays himself.

Once you have this sorted in your head you can start watching the Looper.

The Looper is a tragically confusing mix of too many genres. Take horror, science-fiction, romance and buddy movie. Too much.

As much as I love both actors plus Emily Blunt (who NB has made most unfortunate script decisions recently), this film turned out to be a disappointment.

In 2044 – before time travel has been invented, there is a dirty business going on. Contract killers called loopers shoot death sentenced sent from the future. Time and place is known where they land. The only thing is to pull the trigger without thinking. The body will be loaded with silver bars – as your dough. If the bars are gold – that means you just killed yourself and your career is finished. You get exactly 30 years ahead of you. You just closed the loop.

A futuristic setup in its vision brings to mind Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner straightaway. The future is urbanised, humans are selfish and extremely divided in a caste-like system.

Joe’s (can you think of a better name for an everyman?)  old self is late for the execution and then appears without a headscarf and looks back at him.

With the above setup many things can go wrong, can go various ways – this can be a good story.

The flaws involve too many gaps in the plot. I don’t know how Joe manages to sit in the same scene twice if time travel hasn’t been invented. As far as I get the idea and the convention of the genre, there are too many elements that just do not fit the usual logics of a futuristic vision.

There should be certain rules, right? The mere concept of being able to speak to your older self is fair enough but then this story falls over into pieces on so many levels.

As always mending the future by time travel into the past is tricky as every step does change what you end up with. But this is just unsuccessful. On the verge of boring and too many threads are unexplained, illogical and at times gory for no particular reason. Very disappointing.

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Moonrise Kingdom by Wes Anderson (2012)

Wes Anderson is a magician of the cinema. He is able to create worlds which are very far from reality and yet enchant us and drown in the nostalgia for what could have been or at least how we would like to remember our past experiences.

Moonrise Kingdom was screened at this year’s Cannes festival which usually indicates a work’s particular value to the world of cinema.

This film is a nostalgic fairy tale squeezing tears of all adults who ever had a childhood.

It seems Wes Anderson here majored in enhancing one’s memories. Everything is extreme to its limits – when it rains, it’s a grand rain of the century, when we see a meadow – its greenery almost makes us shading our eyes from its juicy intensity. The music matches the tone of the story and crafty idea of a child’s voiceover introducing us into the skill of being able to distinguish musical instruments just by hearing them.

Moonrise Kingdom is a beautiful tale which triggered my most beautiful memories coming back to me and I thought of being a child again, of going for a scouts’ camp, of not sleeping with friends, of enjoying every minute of the day and treating it as a never ending adventure and challenge.

Veteran star actors play along young kids and all create an unforgettable ensemble which is credible (that does not often happen with this number of names!). Wes Anderson created a beautiful fairy tale.