It’s 2044 and while time travel has not yet been invented, in 30 years from now it will have been. However, it is illegal, and only used in secret by the largest criminal organizations. In the future, bodies are harder to dispose of since everyone is tagged and tracked. So in order to get around this, the mob ships their enemies back in time, hands bound and head bagged, to be taken care of by “loopers”. Loopers get their names because they sign a contract with the mob such that if they are still alive in 30 years, the mob will send their own body back in time to be disposed of, along with a golden payment. Once the looper “closes the loop” on themself, their contract is fulfilled and they are free to live out their life however they want for the next 30 years. In order to ensure this process runs smoothly, the mob has sent Abe (Jeff Daniels) on a one way trip back in time to manage the loopers. He may initially seem friendly, but he is ruthless and will take extreme steps to punish any looper who falls out of line. Eager to impress Abe, but always coming up short, is his right hand man, the bumbling Kid Blue (Noah Segan).

Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) has been a looper since he was recruited by Abe at a very young age. He always does his job honestly and perfectly, and has been conscientiously saving his silver and learning French, waiting for the day that he closes his loop and can retire. When he’s not disposing of bodies, Joe is enjoying a coffee and practicing his French with diner waitress Beatrix (Tracie Thoms), or enjoying the company of Suzie (Piper Perabo) at the Belle. His one vice is that he has a bit of a drug problem. Joe’s marks always appear in the same location, a field in the middle of nowhere Kansas, but this time something is off. When the body appears, the man is not tied up and there’s no bag over his head. It’s his older self, but as Joe pulls out his blunderbuss and tries to shoot, the older Joe (Bruce Willis) dodges and runs. This puts Joe in danger—letting your loop run is an absolute No-No, and Abe will send people to eliminate both of them. Joe hopes that he can make things right by killing his older self first. However, when they finally do come face-to-face, Old Joe tells him that in the future a new boss called the Rainmaker has come out of nowhere, unleashing a reign of terror, and has started closing all of the loops. Old Joe has come back in time to find the Rainmaker and eliminate him before he kills those he loves in the future. However, Joe doesn’t care—Old Joe already had a chance to live his life and now it’s his turn. He needs to kill Old Joe in order to settle things with Abe and get his own future back. Until he does so, Joe is on the run while he plots a way to eliminate his older self. In the process he hides out at a farm belonging to a woman named Sara (Emily Blunt) and her young son Cid (Pierce Gagnon), but they have secrets of their own.

Looper is an entertaining and twisty sci-fi thriller. The film starts off with a bang (literally), quickly thrusting the viewer into to this strange new futuristic world, explaining how the time travel and modern society works. Things look and feel a bit run down, and crime is rampant. Also, 10% of the population have a TK mutation that gives them telekinetic powers—though usually nothing more than just the ability to float a quarter. The first act is a bit of a fast-paced futuristic crime-thriller as we are shown what happens when a looper fails to close their loop. This makes it very clear why Joe must take down his own older self. However, things slow down quite a bit in the second act as Joe hides out at the farm house and gets to know Sara and her son. While Old Joe is on a hunt to find the Rainmaker, Abe and his men are also looking for both Joes. But in the final act, things ramp up once again for a final showdown.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt gives a solid dramatic performance, though there is something a bit unsettling about his appearance. He looks like himself, but at the same time he doesn’t, wearing some sort of practical prosthetics in order to make him look more like a younger Bruce Willis. Joe is this odd character, he’s young and cocky and thinks he has the world ahead of him, ignoring all the warnings from his older self. Meanwhile, Old Joe knows the mistakes that his younger self made, and was able to turn his life around. Now he wants to save those who helped him do so before they pay the price for his actions. However, convincing his younger self to do the right thing is not going to be easy. That said, neither version of Joe is completely in the right, and both have somewhat selfish motives. Bruce Willis is perfectly cast in this role—this was back before he would seemingly take every direct-to-video paycheck that came his way—and believable as an older version of Joe. I found myself constantly conflicted as to which version of Joe I was siding with. The film has a great supporting cast as well, from Paul Dano as Joe’s looper friend Seth, to Jeff Daniels as the disarming but menacing Abe, to Noah Segan as the bumbling ne’er-do-well Kid Blue, to Garret Dillahunt as one of Abe’s Gat Men, Jesse, and more. Emily Blunt’s Sara is a nice grounding force for younger Joe, and the actress has great chemistry with Gordon-Levitt. As Sara’s secrets are slowly revealed, this creates an interesting dynamic between the characters that starts to shake things up and adds a complexity to the situation.

For the 10th anniversary of Looper, Sony has released the film on 4K UHD for the first time with an all-new director-approved Dolby Atmos audio track plus the original 5.1 audio. The 4K disc is barebones and just includes the movie. The accompanying Blu-ray disc is the same as the previous 2012 release with no new bonus material. It would have been nice if they had at least included the audio commentary track on the new 4K disc as well. That said, the 4K presentation looks and sounds excellent. The 4K video provides a slight but noticeable uptick on the already stellar Blu-ray presentation. The film grain is a little more noticeable, but there is an increase in sharpness and detail, especially in faces, and darker sequences find an increase in definition and clarity. The enhanced Dolby Vision color palette also looks beautiful, in both the sunnier exterior kill shots as well as the more muted tones of the city scenes. I found the new Atmos track to be a bit overly-aggressive with the bass at beginning of the film when Joe first goes to the La Belle Aurore club, but then it found its groove. It provides a solid immersive ambiance throughout, and really shines in scenes such as one early on when Kid Blue accidentally fires his gun and the bullet can be heard bouncing and reverberating in the small, enclosed space. The loud and explosive gun blasts whenever Joe fires his blunderbuss shotgun also sound great.

As mentioned earlier, the Blu-ray disc is identical to the previous 2012 disc, even down to the opening ad for the new “Ultraviolet” service. The disc contains contains an entertaining audio commentary, an animated trailer, over 35 minutes of deleted scenes, and over 30 minutes of behind-the-scenes featurettes. The 4K and Blu-ray discs reside on either side of a standard 4K keepcase, placed inside a glossy carboard slipcover. An insert provides instructions on how to redeem a 4K Movies Anywhere-compatible digital copy of the film.

What’s Included:

Film: (1:58:52)

4K UHD:
• 2160p / Widescreen 2.35:1
• Dolby Vision / HDR10
• Audio: English Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 compatible), English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, English Audio Descriptive Service, Spanish Dolby Surround
• Subtitles: English, English SDH, Spanish

Blu-ray:

• 1080p / Widescreen 2:35:1
• Audio: English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, English Audio Descriptive Service
• Subtitles: English, English SDH, Spanish

Digital (Limited time offer):

• 4K digital copy, redeemable via Movies Anywhere or Vudu

Extras:
The bonus material resides only on the Blu-ray disc, which is identical to the previous release.

• Feature Commentary (1:58:53)
  Writer/director Rian Johnson and star Joseph Gordon-Levitt (and joined by star Emily Blunt 8 minutes in) provide an interesting and informative commentary throughout the film, discussing the filming locations, sets, the use of practical effects, the score, and more. They share a lot of behind-the-scenes stories about the production. Offered with optional English subtitles.
• Deleted Scenes (36:50)
  Collection of 22 deleted scenes, with optional commentary by director Rian Johnson and star Noah Segan (“Kid Blue”). Play All, or select from “Club Entrance Original Cut” (1:25), “Sneaking Into The Belle” (:53), “Outside The Belle” (3:06), “Pawnshop and Belle Revisited” (1:00), “Kid Blue Sees Joe Rejected” (:40), “Suzie Never Wants To See Joe Again” (:45), “Old Seth Original Cut” (1:01), “It’s Not Joe” (:35), “China Sequence — Original Cut” (3:32), “Gat in a Steel Box” (:32), “Kid Blue Boy Detective” (3:52), “Straws and Salt” (3:50), “Kid Blue Escapes” (1:38), “Sara Decides Not To Dump Joe” (1:54), “Meet Daniel” (1:35), “Evening Lessons” (:34), “Canady and Kid Blue” (2:44), “Jesse Searches The Laundry” (2:48), “Old Joe Can’t Stop” (2:46), “Old Joe Confronts Suzie” (2:21), “Abe Gathers The Troops” (:36), and “Sara Walks To The Field” (:45).
• The Future From the Beginning (7:52)
  The cast and filmmakers talk about the genesis of the film, working with the director, the characters, working with the young actor playing Cid, transforming Joseph into a young Bruce Willis, the use of practical effects, and more. Includes behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with writer/director Rian Johnson, producer Ram Bergman, cinematographer Steve Yedlin, and stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt (“Younger Joe”), Bruce Willis (“Older Joe”), Emily Blunt (“Sara”), Paul Dano (“Seth”), Noah Segan (“Kid Blue”) & Piper Perabo (“Suzie”).
• The Science of Time Travel (8:29)
  The cast and crew discuss the idea of time travel and the ability to change things from your own past, the history of time travel in science and literature, the rules of time travel in the film, and what they would do if they could time travel. Participants include writer/director Rian Johnson, author Brian Clegg (“How to Build a Time Machine”), and stars Emily Blunt, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, Piper Perabo, Paul Dano & Noah Segan.
• Scoring Looper (16:18)
  Collection of three videos by Composer Nathan Johnson, who gives viewers a preview of the film’s unique score. Each video takes a behind-the-scenes look at how some of the unconventional music was made, followed by a full track from the score over clips from the movie. Play All, or select from:
  • Field Recordings (5:14)
    Johnson talks about making field recordings of industrial objects in New Orleans, and then turning these sounds into a virtual orchestra that could be used to develop the score.
  • Percussion (4:32)
    Johnson talks about his rhythm reconnaissance missions to find objects to develop a custom percussion section out of sounds from items not usually found in a traditional drum kit.
  • Melodic Instruments (6:41)
    Johnson talks about creating new melodic sounds that fit into the world of the film using instruments he created out of his field recordings, but also using a small orchestra to anchoring and ground the melody in the real world.
• Looper Animated Trailer (1:34)
• Previews
  Select from trailers for Parker (2:31), Premium Rush (1:34), Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning (1:32), Company of Heroes (2:16), Seven Psychopaths (2:28), and Lockout (2:29).

Final Thoughts:

Looper is a creative and entertaining sci-fi crime thriller with a time-travel twist. It features strong lead performances, and some interesting and thought-provoking twists. Sony’s new 4K release provides a slight but noticeable upgrade in picture compared to the previous Blu-ray release (which already looks and sounds great). It offers no new supplemental material, though the bonus features ported from the previous Blu-ray release are still solid. While this is certainly the version to pick up for those who don’t already own the film, only the die-hard fans who already own the 2012 Blu-ray may wish to double-dip on the upgrade, or wait for a sale.

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