“I don’t want to talk about time travel.” — Joe (Bruce Willis), in the film Looper

“I kinda do.” — Me, in the audience of the film Looper

(Note: There will be no spoilers here, the only real information I’ll be talking about are things evident in the movie trailers.)

There were two things I knew about Looper before I saw it. Both of those things were revealed in the trailer for the film, and both of them worried me, because both of them seemed pretty stupid. I’ll get to both of those things in a minute. First, some praise!

Looper is a GOOD MOVIE. Go see it. It’s interesting, entertaining, funny, exciting, violent, cool, thought-provoking, and best of all, completely surprising, and you should definitely go and see it, despite all the paragraphs of whining you’re about to endure. Or, don’t endure them! You don’t really need to keep reading, because if you just go and see Looper, you’ll probably enjoy it. I don’t want to say much else about it, other than the two things I will go on to say, because it’s best to go in knowing as little as possible.

Now, the two things I knew about Looper before seeing it. The first thing that worried me was the general premise: in the future, the mob controls time travel, and uses it to send people back in time to be killed by hitmen. Before I saw the movie, this just seemed patently absurd. And, having seen the movie, it is still patently absurd.

Look, I can see the mob controlling, say, gambling, prostitution, drugs, weapons, maybe even politicians. Maybe even secretly controlling some sort of science, like a pharmaceutical lab or maybe some kind of high-tech gadget firm or something. But time travel? Which would be the biggest and most important scientific discovery ever? That seems about as plausible as the mob controlling space travel. I just can’t envision a future where a bunch of mafioso types walk into NASA and say, “Yeah, you gotta nice space program here, but we’re gonna be making some changes, capice? Dis is Big Vinnie. From now on, you wanna go to da moon, you wanna go into space, you wanna, I dunno, do da thing where you send a rocket to look at space rocks on Mars, badda bing, badda boom… you talk to Big Vinnie foist.” *straightens tie, walks out*

You do get a little explanation of how it works, and why the mob uses it the way it does, but the explanation is brief and, from a logical standpoint, pretty unsatisfying. But, that’s kind of okay.  Sometimes, in science-fiction movies, the fiction is more thought-out than the science, like in Back to the Future, where the focus is on the journey of Marty and his parents, and the science is just a magic car and a photograph that people disappear from a bit at a time. We accept that, or at least it doesn’t bother us too much at the time because we’re enjoying the story (though it’s definitely fun to pick it apart later). Other sci-fi films focus on the science, such as in the time travel film Primer. In Primer, the science was definitely nailed down, but the fiction, in my opinion, was crap (and here fiction includes things like storytelling and acting and making the audience give a shit about anyone on the screen).

I always want both sides of the equation to have equal heft. I want some good science, and I want some good story, and while it’s pretty rare to get both, films can work just fine with just one. Overall, I don’t think Primer is a good film but the makers really did an amazing job of logically portraying time travel, probably the best anyone has done to date, and that part of the film really works. Meanwhile, the time travel in Back to the Future is silly garbage, but the film is fun as hell and has a fantastic script.

Looper basically falls into the Back to the Future camp. The science of their time-travel is redonk, and doesn’t really try to be anything else. The quote at the top of this entry, said by Bruce Willis to his younger self, is more or less the attitude of the film. Another character says roughly the same thing, and these comments are really directed at us, the audience. The mob controls time travel, they send people back 30 years to get whacked, don’t worry about the reasons or how it works because it doesn’t, really, and even if we sort of wish it did, the story Looper tells is entertaining enough without it.

Now. The second thing from the trailer that concerned me: Joseph Gordon-Levitt is covered with facial prosthetics (see disturbing image above) to make him look like a young version of Bruce Willis, since they play the same character at different ages. Even in just a few seconds of trailer footage, I found this kind of distracting.

In the two-hour movie, I found it immensely distracting. The contact lenses, the eyeliner, whatever the hell is going on with his stupid fake eyebrows, the curved nose they stuck on him, the giant oil painting of a bottom lip they glued to his real bottom lip… all of these things just kept me staring at parts of his face for the entire movie through squinted eyes thinking, jeez, I am so distracted right now. Is that a lip or a throw-rug? EYEBROWS! EYEBROWS! Lip. Liiiiiip. Contacts. LIP! Nose. Fake nose. Eyebrows eyebrows LIIIIIIIIP.

But it’s not JUST the make-up. It’s also the constant facial contortion he’s undergoing, rigidly holding a lemon face to approximate Bruce Willis’ sour mug, and the raspy muttering Bruce Willis voice impression, and the attempt at the famous Bruce Willis smirk, and the worst part of ALL OF THESE DISTRACTING DISTRACTIONS that he STILL DOESN’T FUCKING LOOK OR SOUND ANYTHING LIKE BRUCE WILLIS.

THUSLY, there is NO POINT. We would have easily accepted the idea that they were the same person at different ages if the film just told us that. We may have thought initially, well, they don’t really look anything alike, but we wouldn’t be obsessed with it for the entire movie. (LIP. LIIIIIIIP.) We would probably just accept it. Suspending disbelief isn’t always easy, but it’s especially hard when you’re staring at an actor who you like and who you are familiar with while he does a shitty Bruce Willis impression for two hours with a face covered in plastic noses and fake eyebrows and lip-murals. AND, if you insist on covering JGL with weird, distracting make-up, why not have him play dual roles, so the young JGL is just JGL, and the old JGL is JGL covered with old-person make-up? At least that way, while one JGL is covered in stupid, unconvincing make-up, you still have one that isn’t.

Anyway. Those were my two concerns going in, and they remain my two concerns coming out, but they are both ultimately overshadowed greatly by the quality of everything else. There’s a great story to Looper, and the film has plenty of excitement, several WTF moments, some great character development, and if you can let the science go, and do your best to forget JGL is wearing a Bruce Willis mask that doesn’t look anything like Bruce Willis, I think there’s a lot to enjoy. Go see it!

For decades, filmmakers have looked ahead to the 21st Century, imagining it as a time of wonder and technological advancement. And here we are, wading balls-deep in the very future they so fervently imagined. The Future Was Then will examine various filmmakers’ visions and predictions of a future that we are now living in, and see how they stack up against reality.

Our first film is Freejack, the 1992 Emilio Estevez time-travel film that takes place in the distant, futuristic world of 2009. Keep in mind, I’ll just be looking objectively at the predictions the filmmakers, not actually reviewing the film itself, though it should be noted that the film in this case completely sucks.

Film: Freejack

Made in/Set in: 1992/2009

The Future 2009 Was: Fuck-ugly cars, video phones, and devices capable of transporting people into the future so rich old people could steal their bodies.

The Actual 2009 Was: The International Year of Natural Fibres. Hum. Okay. Technology-wise, Windows 7 was released and works okay, I guess.

Plot Summary: Emilio Estevez is a race-car driver in 1991 who is whisked into the future of 2009 moments before he dies in a fiery crash. This process is known as “bonejacking”: stealing the body of someone about to die, transporting it into the future, and letting some old rich guy use it. Emilio manages to escape the clutches of the bonejackers before they can sedate him and goes on the lam, something that apparently happens so often there’s a name for these escapees: “Freejacks.” Emilio jacks freely all over the goddamn place, trying to find his 1991 girlfriend, Rene Russo, who doesn’t appear to have aged one whit in the 18 years since Emilo “died”.

Pursuing Emilio is Mick Jagger, the head bonejacker, who drives a tank and supervises a bunch of inept, go-cart driving thugs. Emilio eventually learns that Rene Russo’s boss, Anthony Hopkins, is the one who ordered Emilio’s body to be brought to the future, because Hopkins is dying and needs a new body. He is also in love with Rene Russo and figures the best way to seduce her is by using the body of her dead boyfriend. That’s not creepy or anything. Hopkins, whose mind has been downloaded into a computer, tries to take over Emilio’s body, but the process is interrupted and Emilio is free to continue his unconvincing relationship with his old (literally) girlfriend.

How well did Freejack predict the future of 2009?

Automatic Doors: Here in the film’s 2009, you can say “door” and your door will open. Wow. I’d like to point out that as far back as the 1950’s, we had automatic doors that would open and you didn’t even have to say “door” to activate them, so that seems like a step back.

There are also automatic lights in Freejack. Walk into a room and the lights go on! They got that right: we have automatic lights in our breakroom at work. Sometimes if I’m sitting in there reading the paper for a while, the lights will turn off  and I’ll have to wave my arms around until they turn back on. When this happens, I’ll say something futuristic, like: “Goddamn it, stupid lights.”

Cars: Cars in Freejack seem to come in a few different types: the bonejackers drive red go-carts, the cops drive blue motorcycles controlled by unmarked buttons, and the rich are driven around in giant ugly bubble limousines with a little uncovered pod in the front so the chauffeur gets wet if it rains, just to remind him he’s a lower form of life. The film also features a champagne delivery truck so rich people can have fresh champagne at a moment’s notice. They certainly are rich, those rich.

I haven’t seen any ugly bubble limos driving around in the real future, but the 2010 Ford Transit Connect is an eyesore of futuristic proportions.

Time Travel: We currently cannot transport people from 1992 into 2009, and that goes double for Emilio Estevez, who doesn’t have a single film credit in ’09. In 2010, he had to resort to jacking his own bones: his only credit is a film he wrote and directed himself.

The Spiritual Switchboard: This is the name of the massive computer that Anthony Hopkins’ brain is being kept alive in on the 200th floor of his building (in the future, buildings are SUPERTALL). We still can’t download our brains into computers and I don’t really want to try: my own computer is still convinced that the iPod I plug into it every single day is, in fact, a digital camera. I wouldn’t trust it to know what to do with my brain. It’d probably try to install ringtones in it.

Video Phones: If there’s one thing people in the past thought we’d be using in the future, it was video phones. Thing is, they thought we’d be using it for every call, no matter how trivial, when in reality we mainly use it for attending boring business meetings in another city or for showing our wangs to random strangers on Chat Roulette.

Mick Jagger: Score one for the film! We’ve still got Mick Jagger here in the future, and he’s still pretty darn cool.

Gosh, Things Are Expensive: Mick Jagger states that the cost of transporting a living body 18 years into the future costs $17 million. That really doesn’t sound like enough. For instance, it cost $30 million just to make the shitty film Freejack. (Its domestic gross? $17 million! Weird.)

Sectors: As Emilio is Freejacking here and there, he’s described by those chasing him as entering various “sectors.” Sci-fi futures are always full of sectors, for some reason. I guess city planners are just too busy signing for champagne deliveries to name roads and neighborhoods.

Suicide Assistance: There’s a billboard shown advertising suicide assistance, since the future is so terrible everyone wants to kill themselves, especially limo drivers because they’re so tired of getting rained on (seriously, the limo driver in the movie blows himself up with a grenade). This may be in the film because California voted on it in 1992, the same year Freejack was made, though it didn’t pass: only 46% of the state was in favor of killing themselves. Come on, California! We can do better!

Prediction Score: 2/10

Film Score: 1/10