14 Years Ago, The Best Time Travel Movie of the 2010s Premiered, And Two Icons Played the Same Character

One of the most difficult things to correctly pull off in Hollywood is a time travel film. The concept lends itself to so many interesting setups, yet it can be tough to write because there are plenty of pitfalls that come with it. Plot holes and inconsistencies are unfortunately hard to avoid, so the end result with time travel movies can be a mixed bag. There are some truly great ones like Back to the Future, About Time, Safety Not Guaranteed, About Time, and Avengers: Endgame, but there are also ones that missed the mark and just couldn’t get it completely together.

Going back 14 years to 2012, we were treated to a fantastic time travel movie that has held up well over the past decade and a half to safely stand as the best of the subgenre from the 2010s. Rian Johnson, before people turned on him for Star Wars: The Last Jedi, was the man in the director’s chair for Looper. On top of being some of his best work and a stellar time travel flick, it is also one of the most creative takes on the genre and had two great actors portray a single character in a unique fashion.

Looper Received Rave Reviews

The premise of Looper is a fun one that made it an engaging project to check out as soon as the trailer was released. The film takes place in 2044 and centers on a man named Joe who works as a “looper,” which is a contract killer who assassinates criminals who are sent back in time and then disposes of the bodies. Joe runs into trouble when a job goes awry because the person sent back in time for him to kill is his older self.

Old Joe has come back to kill the child who will eventually be responsible for the death of his wife. That puts him at odds with his younger self and is the driving force of the movie. Looper was met with widespread acclaim upon release, holding an impressive 93% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Looper was praised for being smart, original, well-acted, well-written, and thought-provoking. On top of that, the film was also a box office success, grossing over $175 million on a budget of around just $30 million.

It’s hard to think of any modern time travel film that can match Looper in terms of both its financial and critical successes. Despite that, people don’t seem to talk about Looper much anymore. It has almost been lost to time. Part of it could’ve been the negative reception that director Rian Johnson received from Star Wars fans and the fact that his latest films, Knives Out, are now hits on their own. His career is filled with great work, yet Looper stands as possibly his best project.

How Looper Made Two Iconic Actors Look Similar

The coolest thing about Looper is the way that Joe and Old Joe are portrayed. Joe is played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who has a long working relationship with Rian Johnson, while Old Joe is played by the legendary Bruce Willis, a veteran of time travel movies. A lot of films would’ve just cast these two talents and left it at that, while so many others would’ve likely opted for CGI. That kind of CGI de-aging tech has worked well in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, and several MCU films, yet Looper went a totally different route.

Instead of using CGI, Rian Johnson went with practical effects. The crew attached prosthetics to Gordon-Levitt’s face, which were created by makeup artist Kazu Tsuji, that would make him look more like a younger Willis. Tsuji took casts of both of their faces and constructed lip pieces, a nose attachment, and fake eyebrows, and they even pulled Gordon-Levitt’s ears back. The actor also sported blue contact lenses. Looper went even further, as they had to make sure the actors also sounded alike.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt achieved that aspect of the role through a lot of practice. Bruce Willis recorded several of younger Joe’s lines and Gordon-Levitt studied them to match everything from his inflection to his tone. He also studied some of Willis’ previous roles to get it just right. It was the kind of care and dedication that shows the true beauty of filmmaking and adds something to the viewer’s experience. Seeing two great actors pull this off makes Looper a better movie.

The process was not without its problems, though, as the prosthetics did hinder Gordon-Levitt’s ability to show the right amount of emotion at times. His fake nose also became dislodged during a passionate scene with Emily Blunt’s character. Despite those issues, going practical was the right move. It looks great and it holds up extremely well, which CGI effects don’t always do. The work done by everyone involved and the high quality of the film make Looper a truly great time travel movie.

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