by Eden
Most time loop movies follow the Groundhog Day formula — a “bad” person becomes “good” through trial and error, repeating things until they manage to get it right. But would that always be the case? In Timecrimes, if there’s a wrong choice to be made, Héctor is going to make it. And he’s going to keep making it over and over.
Christmas time loop movies are a thing. I have a list of at least 10 holiday-themed movies or TV episodes that feature a time loop. And it kind of makes sense — Christmas is all about traditions that repeat year after year. And in a practical sense, a time-loop movie allows for a limited setting and a limited number of characters as well as wardrobe changes. Christmas movies do need to be cheap.
Let’s be clear: Very little of Source Code holds up to any scrutiny and I tend to be charitable with how I rate time loop movies. The way the Source Code project works is fairly nonsensical and the major plot reveals are so clear early on that they almost feel like a disappointment when they come true. But none of that is to say Source Code is a bad movie.
For nearly an hour, Looper feels like it’s just going to be a typical — if incredibly stylish and fun — sci-fi action movie. But it’s the opposite of someone’s past catching up to them — in Joe’s case, it’s his future catching up to him.
This was based on a Japanese novel, All You Need is Kill, but that title was scrapped because of the word “kill.” It was released in theaters with the generic title of Edge of Tomorrow. But for the home market, it was retitled as Live Die Repeat mostly because not enough went to see it with the previous title. Or something. Are we confused yet? So yes, this is the movie where Tom Cruise dies a lot. Let’s just call it that.