LIKE SO MANY OTHERS, I kept waiting for Looper to crash under its own weight, to short-circuit because of its story-telling overload.

That crash, that short-circuiting, never happened.  Looper is as taut and quality a movie as you can hope for, rising head and shoulders above so many franchise-based, started-in-another-media movies.

The story of time-travel and present-meets-future is expertly acting.  Gordon-Levitt must be riding high after the success of The Dark Knight Rises.  And while Premium Rush wasn’t a critical darling, it was an enjoyable trifle.  JGL’s Joe is the through-line of the movie, with many other characters coming in and out effectively and easily throughout.  Emily Blunt plays Sara believably, which is key to the movie’s final act.  And Bruce Willis?  I have to admit to some fear that he would botch things up, especially as I settled a movie whose tone was darker than anticipated.  Willis adds some necessary levity (diner scene), but also ups the ante on the drama and violence quotient (see the previously mentioned final act).

The effects are quality, adding some nice touches.  The future is different, but not so different as to be unrecognizable.  The future, it seems, both is and isn’t the point in the movie.  I like the crop-duster and the junk hover bikes.  Lots of nice touches that change things just enough.  (Be warned: there is one things about the future that you don’t see much of in the trailer that definitely changes things.)  There is a simplistic beauty to the movie, especially once the story moves to include Blunt’s character.

But it really is the story itself that shines.  Many critics have noted how the story builds perfectly, with no part left without some connection to the greater whole.  They are right in that.  I do believe everything introduces comes into play. And things never stop moving forward.  And just when you think things have gone to far astray, the story (for lack of a better term) loops back in on itself.  Rian Johnson directs this story amazingly well, so well that you don’t think about it much until later.

In spite of its ambition, Looper never buckles under its own weight.  Instead, it folds in on itself perfectly, leaving you with one of the best movie-going experiences of the year.