Looper did three things really well:

They made Joseph Gordon-Levitt look like Bruce Willis. Partially make up and mostly acting, but it was really convincing. I could definitely believe that they were the same person at different stages in their life.

They made time travel believable and consistent–at least in my eyes. As far as I understand it, when you travel through time, the time line updates itself in real time around you. So you feel the changes in “real time”. I’m not sure exactly why time travel would work this way, but it makes as much sense as any other and they more or less stay consistent with it throughout the film.

They actually surprised me. I guessed most of the plot twists, but there were still one or two that actually got me. That doesn’t happen that often.

All together, it was more than good enough to put it up in the top five. I won’t quite upset the The Dark Knight Rises, but I’ll give it an edge over Brave.