by Eden
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.
The image of Lola (Franka Potente) running through the streets of Berlin with her flame-red hair is so iconic that everything else about the movie feels almost irrelevant. It’s just fun to watch her.
In the first episode of Russian Doll, Nadia (Natasha Lyonne) gets drunk, smokes a joint laced with cocaine, and ditches the 36th birthday party thrown in her honor by her friend Maxine (Greta Lee) to go have sex with a man she just met. Typically in most time loop narratives, these would all be examples of Nadia’s self-destructive tendencies that she’ll unlearn on the path to becoming a better person. But Russian Doll is smarter than that. Nadia is already pretty good to begin with. It is, as the title alludes to, about removing the layers of personality to find one’s hidden vulnerabilities.