Hopefully you are already excited for Looper, but if you’re not then I’m sure this will do the trick: It’s a sci-fi action film in which Joseph Gordon Levitt plays an assassin hired to hunt down his future self, played by Bruce Willis, and it is directed by Rian Johnson, the creator of the wonderful films Brick and Brothers Bloom. Excited yet? Because you should be. In addition to having a great cast, and a seemingly wonderful script, Looper seems to be something that is a rarity these days: Smart, original sci-fi.
I was sitting at the back of Hall H for the Looper panel, but the excitement in the room was pretty palpable. The five or so minutes of footage that they showed was essentially an extended version of the trailer, expanding a bit on the set-up and characters, showcasing a great scene between Levitt and Willis in a diner, and introducing us to Jeff Daniels as a hilarious-but-terrifying gangster from the future. Things blow up, lots of people get shot, and Bruce Willis kicks (as is to be expected) a whole lot of ass.
There were some intriguing bits in the footage that weren’t explained by time travel, such as a shot of a hovering lighter, that leads me to believe that there is much more going on in this film than we have been made privy to. Shane Carruth, the director of cult favorite Primer, was a consultant on the film, which means that it is bound to get nuts at one point or another.
The panel itself was a lot of fun, despite having only Levitt, Johnson, and Emily Blunt. Bruce Willis couldn’t be there because he was shooting a Die Hard movie (which is as good of an excuse as I’ve ever heard), but that didn’t stop his costars from spending the majority of the panel talking about how awesome he is. They said he was a badass, but also the nicest guy ever, and Emily Blunt shared a story about him sharing a parasol with her while covered in blood, which is a hilarious image.
All in all, of all the panels I’ve seen at comic-con, I’ve never seen one where the cast seemed so genuinely proud of the film. Sure, they always have to say they are, but it was easy to see that Levitt and Blunt both really, honestly felt as though they had helped to make something special. All in all, Looper seems like it is going to be exactly the sort of smart, surprising sci-fi that fans have been waiting for.
