Article updated: 9/27/2012 8:34 AM

'Looper' a little mind-boggling, but entertaining

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This film image released by Sony Pictures shows Joseph Gordon-Levitt in a scene from the action thriller "Looper." (AP Photo/Sony Pictures Entertainment)

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This film image released by Sony Pictures shows Joseph Gordon-Levitt, foreground, and Paul Dano in a scene from the action thriller "Looper." (AP Photo/Sony Pictures Entertainment, Alan Markfield)

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"Looper" makes sense for the most part. But what's smart about it — and what makes it more compelling than colder sci-fi — is the way writer-director Rian Johnson establishes the machinery of the time-travel concept, then steadily pushes it into the background in favor of exploring his characters and the difficult questions they face.