Film review: ‘Looper’

Time-travel movies traffic in upended expectations. From The Terminator’s Michael Biehn fathering John Connor, to Shane Carruth and David Sullivan’s schemes in Primer, a huge part of the fun of bending the space-time continuum is watching characters discover the unexpected consequences of their actions. Rian Johnson’s inventive sci-fi drama Looper is an entrant in that same tradition — but the group that may be most surprised is the audience itself.