Looper (2012)

Director: Rian Johnson

Cast: Bruce Willis, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Emily Blunt, Paul Dano

Have I Seen it Before: Yes. I have the strongest memory of seeing the trailer for the film in the early days of 2012 and laughing pretty hard at the whole “time travel is used for crime” and then laughing a whole lot louder at the image of Gordon-Levitt doing a Bruce Willis impression with a few pieces of prosthetic attached to him.

Then I saw the film and actually ended up liking it. Who knew?

Did I Like It: I also had almost no memories of the film in the years since. Who knew? At first, that seems like what would probably be a bad sign. I do remember thinking that my laughter about Gordon-Levitt’s casting was probably unfair. He’s doing an impression of Willis, sure, but it’s a more nuanced performanced than simply an impression and some putty glued to his face, and he fights the urge to tap into Willis’ early mannerisms in Moonlighting or Die Hard (1988).

Where does such a film go just from the pitch of a character having to assassinate himself? Those are the parts of the film that have seemed to drift away from my memory, but I should have guessed that the film would wind up where it did. How many great filmmakers of the modern age desperately wish studios would allow them to make westerns—and make no mistake, shake aside time travel and telekinesis, and this is just two black hats competing to be the more human—and have to hind them among other genres. Lucas put his outlaws and black hats in outer space, when Spielberg looked back on his influences, he couldn’t forget John Ford, and I would posit that nearly every John Carpenter film is a western, especially the horror films. One imagines that people thought Zemeckis was just cheating with Back to the Future - Part III (1990).

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009)

Director: Stephen Sommers

Cast: Channing Tatum, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marlon Wayans, Christopher Eccleston

Have I Seen it Before: No. Why would I have? I’m of that particular point in the greyscale of generations that I have next to no awareness of the G.I. Joe as anything to care about. I was a kid in the market for action figures long after the older barbie-sized toys, and I am just a hair too young to have had any kind of ambition for the USS Flagg aircraft carrier toy that apparently took up an entire room.

Better question: Why did I do so now? I really need to stop letting myself get talked into getting a movie on Apple TV, simply because they’re only charging 5 bucks for it. Now I’m enough on the hook that I’m going to feel compelled to watch Retalliation (2013) or Snake Eyes (2021).

Maybe I’ll work on that later.

Did I Like It: I wouldn’t say I enjoyed the film, but I would say I am glad that I did. It’s an interesting experiment at play here. There is nothing here—in the writing, performances, or even the editing—that is particularly different from any of the baseline Marvel movies. Why can I occasionally be duped into caring about those movies—maybe moreso in the past than lately, but still—but all of this descends into so much white noise? Is it just that I have some affinity for the source material in the other scenario, and absolutely none here? Probably.

I clearly didn’t care for the movie, but I didn’t hate it so much that I want to bring down the entire house around it. There’s always a little bit of a warm feeling when a filmmaker has a retinue of actors who jump at the chance to work with him again. Sommers’ quality might vary wildly, but Vosloo is here—essentially playing the same role he plays in every other film in which he appears. But Kevin J. O’Connor, and even Brendan Fraser show up for a days work. It’s nice that Sommers isn’t an asshole.

Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F (2024)

Director: Mark Molloy

Cast: Eddie Murphy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Taylour Paige, Judge Reinhold

Have I Seen It Before: Nope.

Did I Like It: The fourth film in the series is occasionally quite amusing, and always a little more than amiable. This immediately puts it ahead of Beverly Hills Cop III (1994) which is an interesting anti-comedy singularity, whose super gravity makes everything around it less funny, and for which I keep wanting to add things to my review*.

It’s also not nearly as funny as the original Beverly Hills Cop (1984). That’s not a terrible sin. Quick: Name a sequel that’s as good or even better than the original. I’m sure you’re coming up with several examples. And you’re right. Let’s make it a little more challenging: Name a comedy sequel that’s anywhere near as good as the original. I’ll wait**.

The slightly more troubling quality is that the film is thoroughly committed to eliciting memories of the first film, especially with those needle drops, that I think I may owe Beverly Hills Cop II (1987) an apology, as I callously accused that film of the same thing, and now never in a million years would I accuse Tony Scott of eating Martin Brest’s leftovers.

Also, did I hallucinate this, or did Axel (Murphy) claim to be celibate at the weirdest possible time in the weirdest possible way in this film? I mean, the notion of a comedy action star claiming to eschew the flesh isn’t the worst jumping off point for a movie, and in fact it would have been weirdly original idea. But here, it’s thrown in the mix without anything to back it up or pay it off, I can’t help but wonder if Murphy insisted on adding it into the film. Which only makes it weirder…

*Why the hell didn’t John Singleton direct that? He was right there. Come to think of it, why are all four directors in this series white? This feels a pointedly dumb ongoing choice.

**I might, might, give you Lethal Weapon 2 (1989) up against Lethal Weapon (1987), but I would contend that the original Weapon is far less of a comedy than the first Beverly Hills Cop, and it would likely be the least controversial opinion I would express that day.

10 Things I Hate About You (1999)

Director: Gil Junger

Cast: Julia Stiles, Heath Ledger, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Larisa Oleynik

Have I Seen it Before: Yes. I’m struggling to remember if I saw it in the theater. I know being an adolescent in the early portions of the 21st century, I might have just absorbed the movie, but I want to say I actually went and saw it in the theater. It’s telling about me that I’m far more bothered by not remembering when I first saw this movie than I am by not remembering anything that actually happened to me before I turned age 18.

Did I Like It: There’s no denying that in the post-Hughes era of teen comedies, this one is—if not smarter—certainly the most literate entry. Orange County (2002) is perhaps more manically funny, Election (1999) is a little more relevant to our current rolling national nightmare, but this one’s based on a Shakespeare play, and the movie will not let fifteen minutes of screen time roll by without reminding us of that. It’s still something of a virtue. 

The title is… fine. If it had nothing more to recommend it, I have a vision of it disappearing in the gust of wind that swept every last Blockbuster Video from the earth.

Its more tangible virtues lie in the sudden emergence of Heath Ledger as a verifiable movie star. He’s certainly the most interesting actor on first blush, but the fact that he seemed to arrive with all of his charisma in full on this, his first major release. Maybe his reputation as a latter-day James Dean only makes this debut more remarkable, but name for me the amount of verifiable film stars that arrived like this. Maybe the film around him could have been more memorable, but it could have also been a real shitshow.