Looper is a movie that certainly divides opinion. Its take on time travel and assassination is certainly flawed and has loopholes.

However its certainly an entertaining story and its nice to see a film where Bruce Willis makes an effort, he certainly must have liked the script.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is Joe a drug addicted assassin who kills and disposes bodies of victims sent 30 years back in time by a crime syndicate which runs time travel machines. One day these loopers will have to kill their older selves. Its called closing the loop.

However it emerges that in the future a person called The Rainmaker has unrivalled telekinetic powers and is sending loopers back in time to be killed.

Bruce Willis is an older version of Joe. He through the love of a woman cleaned himself up and found inner peace. However as he is taken to be sent back in time, his wife is killed and he vows to kill the child that will grow up to be The Rainmaker.

Younger Joe needs to kill older Joe before the mob in his present kills both of them. He meanwhile seeks refuge in a farmhouse where he discovers a boy with telekinetic powers.

Hence we have a chain of events that would go off and affect both Joes. Maybe somehow, younger Joe can close a loop.

Its a novel update and presentation of sci fi tropes that we have seen before in films like Terminator. The sci fi is not foolproof as the director would like it to be but the film is appealing and entertaining enough with a nice blend of action and thrills.

The kid playing the young Rainmaker was outstanding.

LOOPER is the latest Hollywood movie to tackle the thorny topic of time travel. This one's a little bit like the Van Damme vehicle TIMECOP, although it strives to be less cheesy and more realistic thanks to the presence of former indie director Rian Johnson, who also made the high school murder mystery BRICK with Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Gordon-Levitt plays an assassin who executes criminals sent back from the future for spurious reasons, although inevitably he soon finds his life spiralling out of control when things take an unexpected twist.

I really wanted to like this film. It feels fresh and appealing in many ways, and visually it's a triumph. Gordon-Levitt's performance is fine, although that prosthetic make-up is distracting, and it's fair to say that Bruce Willis is pretty good too, as this is probably the best performance he's given in a while. The action sequences, when they come, are efficiently handled.

So what gives, then? Well, the truth is that LOOPER isn't quite as entertaining as it thinks it is. For once, the story doesn't really work under close scrutiny. All of the other time travel movies I've seen have made a point of not allowing the characters to encounter themselves in another time period, as this would cause a paradox. In this one, Willis and Gordon-Levitt share cups of coffee together, and it never quite gels.

In addition, the pacing is off, with long, boring and tension-free interludes spent sitting around in a farmhouse with the miscast Emily Blunt. Yet another twist involves characters who are telekinetic, which is all a little too much; wasn't the time travel plot enough? Although it's not bad for what it is, LOOPER doesn't hold a candle to the ultra-efficient low budget Spanish time travel movie, TIMECRIMES.

Rian Johnson (The Brothers Bloom, Brick) is the writer and director of this sci-fi film. Like his other projects, this has original if slightly off-kilter thinking in its story. It is not a regular sci-fi movie. There are some crazy ideas going on here. Time travel is not enough. There is also telekinesis, post collapse apocalypse, mob killings, and pre-planned suicide for hire (yeah figure that one out). Does it all make logical sense? I can't tell. But it sure was fun trying to follow it. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is great as the young Bruce Willis. Emily Blunt is refreshingly new. Also staring is Paul Dano and Piper Perabo.