Looper - Page 3

And that's what is so frustrating for me as well.
Great idea for a movie, but the execution falls a little short.

What made the ending SO dramatic as it was is
Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)

I found the dialog intelligibility to be problematic at times. For example, I had no problem with Prometheus. Not once did I have to turn up the volume to hear dialog and run to turn it down for LFE. The reviewer of Looper at HiDef Digest commented about this as well.

When I go to the theater I never have a problem with dialog. With older films at home I'm fine. While not as bad as The Dark Knight, about the worst I've encountered, Looper appears to have been mixed with aggressive LFE making some of the softer dialog difficult to understand. With mixes like this it almost makes me wish my system didn't have the dynamic capability it does.

I thought the cover art on the case came off kind of strange (as I examined it in the rental store), given all of the gun control mania in the media, as of late. I look at each frame on the front, and then turn to the back, and thought...'kay what's this box art trying to tell me about the movie? Everybody wields a gun in this film...lotsa guns, evidently? Then it made me think of that parody YouTube video that satires the Hollywood celeb PSA about guns...this must be wunna dem flicks that everybody is talking about glorifying senseless violence! I still plan to rent it later. I just picked up Bourne Legacy for tonights entertainment. (It only had one person with a gun on the box art.) Then I walked by all the other new-releases just to examine how many have a "guy with a gun" motif... It wasn't that many, but that Looper box was just oddly pouring it on thick.

Im hoping to watch this tonight.

I really enjoyed this film I thought it was well done. Great cast all round. Definite keeper in my collection.

Was there lots of guns?

Too be honest I enjoyed the story to care if there was lots of guns.

Well, that is good news! I plan to see it. I was just dying to know if the box art was at all consistent with the story.

Don't get me wrong, there is violence but I really enjoyed the story. I didn't the expect the story to go the way it did which I liked.

I certainly don't mind some violence. It's just the box art was almost like a parody of dramatic box art with each character posing menacingly with a gun. Basically, I would know nothing about this movie based on looking at the box.

When you watch it I'm curious to read your take on it, some people like it some don't. I one for one liked it.

Yes. There were a hell of a lot of guns. But, there weren't guns just for the sake of having guns. They fit with the story, so they didn't seem out of the ordinary in the context of the film. Awesome movie. I've seen it four times already. It's true about the audio, though. If I have the dialogue set at a nice level, then I definitely have to turn the sound down when I know there are going to be loud explosions and such - it is a little annoying.

I agree the movie was awesome.

 

 

 

I'd gladly pay the price of admission to see a move in Art's theater vs. most commercial theaters any day of the week.  With perhaps a few arguable exceptions, Art's home theater is more professional than most professional theaters one can visit today.

+1

It also took a few more risks than most movies, so seemed a bit fresher because of it. I also liked the angle with the kid and Emily Blunt was very good in her role.

I agree for me that was unexpected and made the movie even better and Emily Blunt looked stunning in this role. That young boy also did an amazing job for his age he played his part very well, kinda freaked me out.

Lol, that little annoying thing called Dynamic Range. A lot of people spend really good money to be able to fully recreate sequences with great dynamic range.

Most players and receivers have some form of dynamic range compression for those of you that can't hang with the real deal dynamics.

Well, I do think there is a point where "dynamics" are taken too far. There's a point where things are entertaining and fantastic, and going well beyond that is needlessly annoying. It's not "realism", either, because if it was truly accurate, that amount of gun fighting and incendiary extravaganza in a typical action movie at authentic SPL and dynamics would be dealing you temporary hearing loss or threshold shift within 5-10 minutes and possibly permanent hearing loss by the end of the movie. An "authentic" ballistics explosion would likely kill you just with the shockwave. You don't want "realism" for this kind of stuff, because the real stuff most certainly can injure you...that would no longer be "entertainment", would it?

I never said anything about absolute real SPL and full real life explosion dynamics. Now you're the one being silly.

It's a movie and movies have had this (and better) dynamic range for decades now. For those of you that can't hang, don't listen at reference or turn on your equipments DRC. Easy.

Reference as opposed to what?

The mix I've heard at the last few films I've seen, at an IMAX theater, was fine. For instance, I had no problem with dialog or dynamic range with The Dark Knight. But with the BD the LFE is even more aggressive and incompatable with some of the very soft dialog. I prefer what I heard at the theater. Which is reference?

I'm slowly getting the impression that action/adventure BD's are being mixed to the point of it being a contest to see who can go the loudest, the longest. Prometheus is an example of a balanced and reference sound mix. Looper went for over the top explosions/gunfire/etc at the expense of dialog.
Edited by egrady - 1/15/13 at 8:45am

A definite case where the performances were the absolute best part of the film. The story itself was pretty good (had some typical time-travel plot holes), but also ran afoul when it also wanted to be a hard core action movie and not just a dramatic sci-fi film. The dramatic genre mixed with the action genre rarely mix well unless scripted extremely carefully. To see one that did a better job was also a Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Jeff Daniels vehicle: The Lookout. That particular film could have easily de-evolved into a typical heist movie, but director/writer Scott Frank (writer of the excellent Out of Sight) infused it with some humanity. That was the film that also showed to me that Gordon-Levitt had truly outgrown his 3rd Rock From The Sun comedy days.

Ha, agreed!

She did look great. I had to google her to see if she had some athletic background. And the boy...

Really enjoyed the audio in this. Alot of mood LFE. One of my favorite effects.

The Lookout was great and really got JGL into my head.

I made the mistake of viewing Looper the day after seeing The Brothers Bloom (Johnson's second film.) Great cinematography, fun story, looking forward to his next film for sure.

Then came Looper, sigh. I'm not saying this is what happened, but it was as if he sold his soul to the studio and they did the "drop in" action and bombastic sound stuff. I am greatly disappointed. What could have been a very nice movie ruined by the studio obsession with noise and "action."

Hoping he got it out of his system and his next effort won't be such a sell-out.

watched last night. didn't care for the overly convoluted plot.

what's up with the audio on this br???

i was constantly turning the volume up for dialog and down for action scenes the whole movie. it became rather annoying and detracted from
what little enjoyment i could find in this film.
others at home were asleep
and the audio range on this was way over the top.

It was really peaky and unbalanced... and no that is not the same as dynamic As for the movie... it was meh. After hearing the buzz on it I guess I expected something better. Between this and Taken 2 it sure is easy to see why Dredd ended up being such a surprisingly fun flick.

dredd will be my next redbox

I had some minor complaints but much better than I expected. I watched it via Vudu but ordered a copy today and am looking forward to a second viewing in 3D.

The key to liking this movie (Dredd) is to interpret it as a video game.

Saw this film at my local cinema when it was on its theatrical run and I remember the soundtrack having a rather strong dynamic range to it. My set-up at home is calibrated (including a minor tweek where the dialog in my system is louder/stronger for better understanding similar to the cinemas actually) Anyways, this film does have the same dynamic range as it did in my local cinema but x10! Seriously, I came to this site to see if maybe I was the one that was "over exaggerating" but no. After reading and reading of the same complaint it is in fact in the sound mix itself within the Blu-ray (Don't even know why I thought maybe it was my system smh) The dialog was perfect for me and it was never a problem of having to turn it up to hear the dialog. It was more of a problem where I would want to turn it DOWN when the action kicked in. Not every action scene is like this but most are...

Just my .02