Look beyond the residents of “Hotel Transylvania” and the monsters in “Resident Evil Part 18” and you’ll notice fascinating, character-driven films playing at a theater near you.  And no, not all of them fit nto the artsy-fartsy, “for-film-snobs-only” genre.

Nope, the most surprising winner so far this season is “Looper,” a sci-fi thriller with more than a few scenes of a gun-toting Bruce Willis laying waste to nameless bad guys.

Willis has a small but integral part to play in a twisty and pleasantly time-travel adventure from “Brick” director Rian Johnson.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Joe, a hitman living in 2042 who kills people sent via illegal time travel from 30 years in the future (it’s the snazzy way of ditching bodies AND all the evidence).

When the bad guys of the future send future Joe (Willis) back to be killed by Young Joe (an act known as “closing the loop”), Old Joe escapes his sentence, which makes both Joes marked men.

Really, that’s only the start of how crazy things get, with the most important bit of information revealed in the second half and the appearance of Emily Blunt as a tough-as-nails farm owner. “Looper” has its share of gun fights and heady depictions of future societal decay, but the movie slows down to focus on a moral dilemma the two Joes face when Blunt enters the picture.

Gordon-Levitt continues to prove his worth as one of Hollywood’s most compelling young actors, and his sit-down with Willis at a rural diner is a tense centerpiece of the film. If the movie loses points for originality in the second half, it more than makes up for it in mood and character—even the secondary goons are given unique mannerisms and motivations.

That devotion to character makes “Looper” a refreshing entry to science fiction, a genre that has become overrun with flashy special effects and lazy plotting in recent years.