Looper

I was lucky enough to get to a preview screening of Looper a full five days before its UK and USA release and boy was it worth getting in early. Looper is a smart and twisting Science Fiction thriller which plays with the ideas and rules of time travel to create a tense film which leads you down unexpected alleys, confounding your ideas and expectations.

It’s 2042 and in thirty years time travel will be invented. Although immediately outlawed the machines are used by the mob to send people back in time for execution thus destroying all evidence of murder. The people who carry out the killing are called Loopers. One of these Loopers is Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who conducts his job with the utmost professionalism despite a few personal issues. One day though to his shock, he looks up at the tarpaulin ready for the arrival of his next victim when the man who appears in front of him is the older version of himself (Bruce Willis).

Brick

I usually write a review almost immediately after seeing a film and due to time constraints generally write just one draft. Thankfully I’ve waited until the following morning to write something about Brick as the extra few hours has allowed me to work it around in my head and appreciate some of the finer details of the film which last night I just thought were confusing and dull.

High School student Brendan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a bit of a loner these days after breaking up with his girlfriend Emily (Emilie de Ravin) and reporting his friend to the School’s Vice Principle. Brendan receives an unexpected and garbled phone call from Emily who talks about items such as a brick and a pin and something about Frisco before abruptly hanging up. Concerned for her safety Brendan goes about tracking her down but finds he is too late to help so then sets out to discover what the pin is, who or what is Frisco and what it all has to do with Emily and a brick.

Premium Rush

New York City bicycle courier Wilee (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is at the end of a tough day dodging traffic and delivering packages across the length and breadth of Manhattan when he gets one last call. Wilee has to pick up an envelope from a college campus Uptown and deliver it to Chinatown by 7pm but is soon approached by a debt ridden, crocked cop (Michael Shannon) who tries to take the package off his hands. Sensing something isn’t right; Wilee takes off at high speed which brings about a two hour chase across the Borough and ends up involving Wilee’s ex girlfriend Vanessa (Dania Ramirez), love rival Manny (Wole Parks) and luckless bike cop (Christopher Place).

For a film about a bike messenger trying to deliver an envelope, Premium Rush is a lot of fun. The action is fast paced and well shot and the acting good and sometimes great. The plot is a little uninvolving but plays second fiddle to the high speed bike action.

The Dark Knight Rises

Spoiler Free

The final part of Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy finds Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) broken, physically and mentally, eight years on from the events of The Dark Knight. Wayne has become a recluse, staying away from the limelight both as a Billionaire playboy and masked vigilante. Wayne is temped out of retirement though through a combination of curiosity about a wily cat burglar called Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway) and the threat of a powerful anarchist named Bane (Tom Hardy).

I’ve never been as much of a fan of Nolan’s Batman films as some people although I did like Batman Begins and really enjoyed The Dark Knight. Going in I’d avoided all spoilers and reviews but expected that I would enjoy the film. I was wrong though. I didn’t just enjoy it but thought it was one of the best, if not the best film I’ve seen so far this year. Nothing prepared me for just how good this film is.