LOOPER Trailer Makes Me Feel Funny Inside

• Tweet
• Pin It

Rian Johnson, who came onto the scene a few years back with the terrific neo-noir, Hammett-inspired Brick, has a new trailer out for his upcoming film Looper. And wow – if you’re not excited yet, get ready to be. For this one, Johnson seems to be mixing noirish crime with high-concept science fiction, and the preview, at least, makes it look mighty fine indeed.

Reuniting with writer/director Johnson, after previously working with him on Brick is Joseph Gordon-Levitt. This time out, he’s playing a mob hitman, who kills marks who are sent to him from the future, so that they can be murdered and disposed of in the past. However, Gordon-Levitt recognises one of his marks, played by Bruce Willis, as being an aged version of himself, and in a moment of hesitation, lets him get away.

So, that’s the basic premise (the trailer explains it much more coherently than I do, but doesn’t look as handsome while typing), and this latest trailer expands on that a whole bunch. Check it out below if you aren’t afeared of some spoilers, bub.

Pretty nifty, yeah?

So – in this expanded, much more explodey trailer, Willis talks to Gordon-Levitt about some guy called the Rainmaker who he’s gotta kill because he’s basically like Skynet if Skynet was made from inferior flesh and blood. And between all that, we see Gordon-Levitt desperately pleading with his employers to not kill him as Gordon-Levitt, so that he can kill himself as Willis. And also – Jeff Daniels appears, looking rad (apparently, whenever he appears onscreen with Gordon-Levitt he spontaneously sprouts a rocking beard, as he did when he previously starred with Gordon-Levitt in the decent The Lookout. They call this condition “Joseph Gordon-Lycanthropy”).

Now, this is a slick looking trailer, and hopefully it means that Johnson has carte-blanche to do whatever he does after it makes kerjiggers of dollars. One of the more impressive parts of this film is Gordon-Levitt’s eerie impersonation of Willis, helped in no small part by the weird prosthetic/CGI enhancements to his face, but also nailing a lot of Willis’ tics (check out his Willis-esque horse eye-face at 1:47 of the trailer). And Willis acts like…well, he’s Willis.

I’m a sucker for these types of twisty, fucky, grimy sci-fi flicks, especially when time-travel is dealt with in a way that doesn’t automatically make me sprout a disappointment-boner. Which is probably a bad thing, because my father told me from a young age to swear to him that I wouldn’t watch time travel movies, and I’m not sure why, I mean – HOLY SHIT THAT HOMELESS GUY MY DAD HAD ME MURDER WHEN I WAS TWELVE WAS ME FROM THE FUTURE.

This trailer seems to be trying to sell the more actiony beats of the story, and I gotta say, there were more than I was really expecting. With a shitload of gunplay, and lots of things going all mysteriously floaty – probably a result of “FUTURE,” or maybe just all the ‘shrooms I took before I watched that trailer, which probably explains why Jeff Daniels was talking at quarter speed, and is sitting next to me while I type this.

Don’t bite me, Jeff Daniels! Great… now I’ll sprout a beard when I’m in all my upcoming films with JG-L.