Directed by: Rian Johnson
Starring: Bruce Willis, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Emily Blunt
With: Jeff Daniels, Piper Parabo and Pierce Gagnon
Certificate: 15
So what was it like: This film is pretty good. It's not one of the greatest sci-fi films ever made, in fact it's not even one of the best sci-fi films of the decade. It had its good points that's for sure. Joseph Gordon-Levitt played his part brilliantly in fact he nailed the Bruce Willis bit and stole the show from the great man himself. So the acting was good from Levitt. How about Willis. Well I hate to say it but I he didn't pull his weight as far as the role was concerned. He was just going through the motions which was a shame as he has played some excellent lead roles during his career. Then again that may have been the problem as Levitt clearly owned this film.It was nice to see Jeff Daniels play a bad ass gangster type character and I'm glad to say that he played the part well.
The style of the films was interesting. It was clearly set in the future from the bits of technology on display from Hov-bikes to crop spraying droids but the urban setting brought things down to earth. The clear lack of law and order made for an interesting future world and brought some humor to the proceedings. The story however is where things get a bit messy.
The film starts off well. The world of the story was clearly explained through narrative exposition and interesting use of imagery. Even the time travel element, which is a large part of the story, is easy to understand. This film, like all time travel films has its own rules and there is one particularly gruesome moment that plays with the rules in an interesting manner. Time travel aside the overall feel of the film is somewhat confusing, not because there is a lot to take in, no, it's because the films doesn't really know what it wants to be and that goes for the character of Joe, both the young and old versions. Young Joe comes across as a scum bag early in the film with just a hint of moral fiber coming through while old Joe seems like the better person since he has learned from his mistakes. The two Joe's fight it out as young tries to kill old but later in the film we are introduced to Sara, a tough young lady with a mysterious child. At this point in the film, young Joe turns from desperate gangster to a bit of a softy while old Joe becomes the terminator (pretty much). It's funny because I found myself sympathising with Old Joe more because his actions made more sense. He just didn't want to lose the love of his life and he was ultimately doing the right thing for his young self.
Another part of the film that didn't entirely work was the telekinetic powers. It felt a bit tacked on although the idea came into its own during the third part. The film didn't have too bad a build up although it was slow in places but the ending failed to have any effect. I thought it was a bit clichéd. In fact I would go as far as to say that the ending made the rest of the film feel somewhat pointless.
Rating: 6.3/10