Cabin in the Woods

"That's not fair! I had zombies too!"

"Yes, you had 'Zombies,' but this is 'Zombie Redneck Torture Family.' Entirely separate thing. It's like the difference between an elephant and an elephant seal."

Cabin in the Woods was a great surprise. Given the pedigree behind the movie, my hopes probably should have been higher, but the trailers looked terrible and I just couldn't bring myself to be excited for this movie. Once the critics started raving about how good it was and I heard that it was more than what it seemed, my interest was piqued again, and I am very happy I gave it a second look.

Cabin in the Woods is not a horror movie, and is unclassifiable by normal genre conventions. The best I can do is say it is a horror movie satire with some scary moments, but to define it any further would ruin the movie. This movie's main draw is the eventual discovery of what it is really about, and I wouldn't dream of talking about that here. The movie is the invention of Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon, who worked together for years on  Buffy and Angel. Goddard went on to direct the successful Cloverfield and once again takes the directing helm here, while Joss Whedon serves as co-producer and co-writer. Between this and Cloverfield, Goddard has proven himself as someone to keep an eye out for.

The film begins with a group of college students heading out to a remote cabin in the woods for the weekend. They get lost, encounter a creepy man at a gas station who gives them vague warnings about the cabin, finally get there, start partying, and strange things start happening. It sounds like every horror movie you have ever seen, but that is part of the gag. Even the trailers for the movie are in on the joke. Suffice to say, if you are looking for a horror movie to scare the pants off you, you should look elsewhere. There are a handful of scary moments, but they are scattered amongst such absurdity that most of their impact is lost. 

Cabin in the Woods stars Kristen Connolly, tennis-player turned actress, who does a fine job here and this should definitely earn her some more roles (she stars in another horror, The Bay, coming in November). You will also find a non-Thor-looking Chris Hemsworth and several TV actors rounding out the other chracters. The cherry on top is Richard Jenkins, whose credibility is required to deliver some of the more ridiculous plot explanations, and the final twist of the film is delivered with a fantastic cameo.

This movie is completely bananas and is entirely aware of it. There are scenes in this movie where I could almost hear the writers sitting around in a room high-fiving each other over how awesome it was going to be. Cabin in the Woods makes fun of the last thirty years of Hollywood horror movies, more recent Japanese thrillers, and all of the silly tropes that we have come to accept from this genre. This movie serves as the perfect cap to what appears to be a dying genre that is starved for any breath of creativity (hence the success of the recent Paranormal Activity films). It will be hard to go back and watch any of the movies that Cabin in the Woods makes fun of without thinking of this film, and that's exactly the point.

Looper

"Why French?"

"I'm going to France."

"I'm from the future. Go to China."

I absolutely love low-budget science fiction movies; they lack the luxury of  relying on expensive special effects to tell the story and the filmmakers must be extremely creative to make their world convincing. The genre has had a comeback in recent years, with fantastic entries such as Sunshine, Moon, Source Code, and Another Earth rejuvenating people's interest. With much of the big-budget science fiction being written primarily for the lowest common denominator (Transformers, Battleship, Battle Los Angeles, Cowboys and Aliens, many more), a gap has opened up for the lesser-known directors to eagerly fill with their own ideas and I believe audiences are beginning to pay attention. 

In Looper's vision of the future, time travel will be invented and immediately outlawed. In this future, killing people is extremely difficult, so criminal organizations use time machines to send their targets back in time where they can be killed and disposed of by Loopers; specialized assassins who live in the past. Under the oversight of a man sent back from the future to run the operation, Abe (Jeff Daniels), the Loopers murder the targets in cold blood and incinerate the bodies. Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is one of these Loopers, and when his future self (Bruce Willis) is sent back to be killed, he accidentally lets him get away. Letting a target go is a big deal, and both Young and Old Joe become wanted men by Abe's hired muscle, the Gat Men. Young Joe will discover why Old Joe has come back from the future and will learn much about who he is and the person he will eventually become.

There is much more to Looper than I have outlined here, but this is a film that's biggest strength is its plot so I will not divulge any more. The story is exceptional and culminates in a brilliant ending that is my favourite part of the movie. As a story, Looper has two very distinct halves, and most of the criticism directed towards the movie has focused primarily on this point. There is a stark change in tone about halfway through where the movie switches from being a futuristic crime noir focused on the Loopers into a much slower story about Young Joe living on a farm. A few people I have spoken to have mentioned that they felt the film "dragged a bit," and they were all referring to this switch in the movie. Personally, I found this transition to be necessary to the development of Joe as a character, as leaving his lifestyle in the city helps him see things differently and examine his life and his actions.

Looper's writer/director Rian Johnson first worked with Gordon-Levitt in 2006's low-budget Brick, which was quite good, and the two have been reunited in Looper (with Gordon-Levitt serving as co-producer as well). Johnson directed one other film since then (the under-appreciated The Brothers Bloom). Gordon-Levitt has come quite a long ways as an actor; in 2012 alone he has starred in The Dark Knight Rises, Premium Rush, Looper and the upcoming Lincoln. Young Joe is a large departure for him as it is a much darker role than he normally plays; a good choice as I believe it may open some more doors for his career other than playing the lovable protagonist over and over again. Bruce Willis as Old Joe is fantastic; he carries nearly every emotional scene (of which there are a surprising amount). He still shoots a good number of people and is reliably bad-ass, so you get to see the full extent of Willis' acting range. 

The choice to cast both Gordon-Levitt and Willis as the same person with thirty years difference in age is an interesting one, as this effect is typically accomplished using one actor with make-up used for both the younger and older version of the character. In this case, Willis looks like his normal self and Gordon-Levitt is wearing a layer of prosthetics to change his chin, lips and nose to look like Willis. The effect is mostly convincing, but is muted by the fact that both of these actors are so recognizable on their own that it's hard not to see them as two different people. Some of the more emotional moments require the audience to fully on board with the idea that these two are the same person and there were times I had to remind myself of this. I wonder if a combination of prosthetics and digital effects might have achieved a better effect (such as in TRON Legacy). That being said, the prosthetic work on Gordon-Levitt is exceptional, so this is a minor point that I don't think detracts much from the movie. The story also requires getting two very different performances, as Young and Old Joe are very different from each other, so casting two different people was a wise choice.

Joe (Young and Old) is a great lead character, and it is incredibly refreshing to have one that is truly unlikeable  Joe is a self-serving, drug-addicted backstabbing serial killer, and it is difficult to root for him and want him to succeed in his story. Old Joe is even worse than Young Joe, and having the antagonist of the story be what the protagonist eventually grows up to be is a brilliant concept. As you learn more about Joe's childhood and his future life leading to him becoming Old Joe, you will gradually empathize with his situation, but never to the point where the actions of either character are excusable. He is truly a bad person, and the way that he finally redeems himself is very fulfilling for the story.

Looper's vision of Earth's future is well-realized, with the failed economy leading to the streets being overcome with vagrants and most people living in poverty. Most of it is just backdrop, but it does a lot to add to the idea that people are doing whatever they can to survive in a horrible time, such as the old cars that are retrofitted with solar panels and odd piping to adapt them to modern fuel sources. This is probably the best vision of the future I have seen since Children of Men. The cinematography used is stylish, with twisting and turning cameras and a heavy use of closeups to create tension and emotion. 

Many people have focused on whether the time travel logic of the story is consistent with itself, but I honestly don't think it matters for the story and I don't think the writers felt it did either. There is a scene where Old Joe states specifically that he doesn't want to talk about time travel and I believe this is a cue for the audience that they shouldn't worry about it either. The film doesn't talk about time travel much at all other than pointing out that it exists in the future and it is its invention that has triggered the series of events that Looper follows. There is another supernatural element to the film, one that is wisely not disclosed in the trailer, and I think it will surprise most people that think they know what the move is about going in.

It should be plainly obvious at this point that I loved Looper, and it is easily one of my favourites of the year so far. Unique, refreshing, intelligent, and well-written, Looper serves as a perfect model of the low-budget science fiction movie. I can't imagine anyone not being able to find something they appreciate in this film, and I would strongly recommend everyone taking the time to see it.