Aloha - directed by Cameron Crowe
Starring: Bradley Cooper, Emma Stone, Rachel McAdams, Bill Murray, Alec Baldwin, John Krasinski, Danny McBride, Ivana Milicevic
Running Time: 105 minutes
Rated: PG - very mild language
Famous for working as a pre-teen for Rolling Stone magazine as a music reporter Cameron Crowe followed Led Zeppelin around on tour and based his 2000 movie "Almost Famous" on his experiences.
Like a band desperate to replicate its early success so it is with Crowe of late.
"Jerry Maguire" was (and still is) his great album and I sense that "Aloha" is trying very hard to recapture something of that movies feel and certainly success.
Piling the cast high with some of the most likable and Rom-Com experienced veterans in the business is a good start as is setting the film in Hawaii.
It's not enough on its own of course.... better have a compelling tale and some smart dialogue for the likes of Cooper, Stone and McAdams to get their teeth into.
What struck me most after the opening Hawaiian music and nostalgia laden opening credits had ended was how freakishly fast all of the main players are introduced.
In under five minutes we have met the characters played by Cooper, Krasinski, Stone, McAdams and McBride.
Brian Gilcrest (Cooper) arrives in Hawaii as a civilian contractor to oversee the moving of some sacred bones to make way for a military-corporate joint satellite venture.
Stone- playing an F22 fighter pilot (!) named Allison Ng is assigned as his guide.
I don't know what puzzled me more... Emma Stone as a fighter pilot, her characters name or the military using a highly trained pilot as a guide.
Her casting as a jet jockey makes Blake Lively's in "The Green Lantern seem believable by comparison.
Brian's old flame Tracy (McAdams) is an island resident and is now married to Woody (Krasinski) with whom she has two children.
It is here that that the two major flaws with "Aloha" become apparent.
Firstly it is unclear as to what the intentions are of any of the main characters.
They seem to chop and change from one scene to another and often within the same scene.
Brian tells Allison that the five words he has just said to her should be the longest conversation they ever have.
He seems shut off to her instantly but then deliberately listens in on a call she makes about him to her Mother.
When they fall into bed a few scenes later it is expected more because characters do change so often in this movie more than any tangible sense that they are falling in love.
It's not that there is a lack of chemistry between Cooper and Stone - just that the dialogue and the characters actions and motivations are just so hard to get a fix on.
And for me the second issue is that these are too consciously 'movie' characters.
They are meant to be quirky and lovable but they just come off as odd.
Odd is fine in "The Brothers Bloom" or any movie by Wes Anderson because the entire world of the films fits.
Here the characters are at odds with the plot, the location and the people around them.
They deliver lines that seem intended to be memorable but just come of as obvious attempts.
Brian's feelings towards Tracy are also baffling.
He appears to still be in love with her to begin with but this will change almost instantly when the story demands it.
The script appears to have been written with the ending worked out first and then reverse engineered to get everything there.
It's a shame because there is a good idea lurking in here somewhere and some talent involved.
There are some fine actors in "Aloha" but almost to the last they are wasted.
Cooper is the star and I can't recollect a scene that he isn't in.
When given good material such as "Silver Linings Playbook" he excels.
With "Aloha" his performance comes off like an actors reel. The character is all over the map- changing in tone and intention at every turn.
McAdams does very well with a horribly underwritten character but Krasinski is diabolically underused playing a character who doesn't talk!
He maybe says twenty words in the whole movie.
We are expected to believe that Tracy has tolerated this for 13 years.
It does bear some mildly amusing fruit in his final scene in the movie where the gimmick is utilised quite well.
Oh, and don't get me started on Ivana Milicevic - she has maybe one line and doesn't even need to be here.
I like her - particularly in TV show "Banshee"- and she deserves better.
Thank God then (yet again) for Emma Stone.
Her character may be bizarre and she may have some awful dialogue to spout that fails at being cute as intended but Crowe wisely gives her lots of screen time and even more screen real estate.
She has an abundance of closeups and in all honesty it was being able to sigh longingly at her exquisite visage frequently that kept me as invested as I was.
Not that it was much.
Yep- it is hard to care too much for any of the characters- Brian, Tracy, Woody, Allison, their children or the local Hawaiian people who are exploited in cliched fashion by the plot.
There seems to be far too little weight to the stakes here.
When the ultimate plot point is revealed it should be pretty damned major - and on paper it really, really is but it arrives with a thud like yet another cute line that is clearly an attempt to provide another quotable 'Show me the money!' or "You had me at hello'.
Baldwin and Murray can't help but be good and in this case it is the former that steals the best scene in the movie.
That is sadly not saying much though.
He gets two and a bit scenes but true to form his character drastically changes between them.
Danny McBride has the closest thing to a fully formed character but this may be because his is at lest consistent.
I didn't hate this movie but I didn't like it much either.
It is all over the place and frankly just odd.
I never got a feel for any of the characters.
In Crowe's "Jerry Maguire" Jerry was a man becoming a better version of himself.
Dorothy was a woman looking to be inspired.
They worked because they felt like real (albeit movie) people and we felt like we knew them and liked them and were rooting for them.
Crowe seems to have forgotten everything that made the wonderful 1996 movie and "Singles" and "Say Anything" before it so good.
Far too little romance and not nearly enough comedy here.
RATING: 65 / 100
CONCLUSION: Sloppy writing and poor characters sink this one pretty fast and it is only the effortless charm of the leads and some nice work from Baldwin and Murray that save it from total disaster
Running Time: 105 minutes
Rated: PG - very mild language
Famous for working as a pre-teen for Rolling Stone magazine as a music reporter Cameron Crowe followed Led Zeppelin around on tour and based his 2000 movie "Almost Famous" on his experiences.
Like a band desperate to replicate its early success so it is with Crowe of late.
"Jerry Maguire" was (and still is) his great album and I sense that "Aloha" is trying very hard to recapture something of that movies feel and certainly success.
Piling the cast high with some of the most likable and Rom-Com experienced veterans in the business is a good start as is setting the film in Hawaii.
It's not enough on its own of course.... better have a compelling tale and some smart dialogue for the likes of Cooper, Stone and McAdams to get their teeth into.
What struck me most after the opening Hawaiian music and nostalgia laden opening credits had ended was how freakishly fast all of the main players are introduced.
In under five minutes we have met the characters played by Cooper, Krasinski, Stone, McAdams and McBride.
Brian Gilcrest (Cooper) arrives in Hawaii as a civilian contractor to oversee the moving of some sacred bones to make way for a military-corporate joint satellite venture.
Stone- playing an F22 fighter pilot (!) named Allison Ng is assigned as his guide.
I don't know what puzzled me more... Emma Stone as a fighter pilot, her characters name or the military using a highly trained pilot as a guide.
Her casting as a jet jockey makes Blake Lively's in "The Green Lantern seem believable by comparison.
Brian's old flame Tracy (McAdams) is an island resident and is now married to Woody (Krasinski) with whom she has two children.
It is here that that the two major flaws with "Aloha" become apparent.
Firstly it is unclear as to what the intentions are of any of the main characters.
They seem to chop and change from one scene to another and often within the same scene.
Brian tells Allison that the five words he has just said to her should be the longest conversation they ever have.
He seems shut off to her instantly but then deliberately listens in on a call she makes about him to her Mother.
When they fall into bed a few scenes later it is expected more because characters do change so often in this movie more than any tangible sense that they are falling in love.
It's not that there is a lack of chemistry between Cooper and Stone - just that the dialogue and the characters actions and motivations are just so hard to get a fix on.
And for me the second issue is that these are too consciously 'movie' characters.
They are meant to be quirky and lovable but they just come off as odd.
Odd is fine in "The Brothers Bloom" or any movie by Wes Anderson because the entire world of the films fits.
Here the characters are at odds with the plot, the location and the people around them.
They deliver lines that seem intended to be memorable but just come of as obvious attempts.
Brian's feelings towards Tracy are also baffling.
He appears to still be in love with her to begin with but this will change almost instantly when the story demands it.
The script appears to have been written with the ending worked out first and then reverse engineered to get everything there.
It's a shame because there is a good idea lurking in here somewhere and some talent involved.
There are some fine actors in "Aloha" but almost to the last they are wasted.
Cooper is the star and I can't recollect a scene that he isn't in.
When given good material such as "Silver Linings Playbook" he excels.
With "Aloha" his performance comes off like an actors reel. The character is all over the map- changing in tone and intention at every turn.
McAdams does very well with a horribly underwritten character but Krasinski is diabolically underused playing a character who doesn't talk!He maybe says twenty words in the whole movie.
We are expected to believe that Tracy has tolerated this for 13 years.
It does bear some mildly amusing fruit in his final scene in the movie where the gimmick is utilised quite well.
Oh, and don't get me started on Ivana Milicevic - she has maybe one line and doesn't even need to be here.
I like her - particularly in TV show "Banshee"- and she deserves better.
Thank God then (yet again) for Emma Stone.
Her character may be bizarre and she may have some awful dialogue to spout that fails at being cute as intended but Crowe wisely gives her lots of screen time and even more screen real estate.
She has an abundance of closeups and in all honesty it was being able to sigh longingly at her exquisite visage frequently that kept me as invested as I was.
Not that it was much.
Yep- it is hard to care too much for any of the characters- Brian, Tracy, Woody, Allison, their children or the local Hawaiian people who are exploited in cliched fashion by the plot.
There seems to be far too little weight to the stakes here.
When the ultimate plot point is revealed it should be pretty damned major - and on paper it really, really is but it arrives with a thud like yet another cute line that is clearly an attempt to provide another quotable 'Show me the money!' or "You had me at hello'.
Baldwin and Murray can't help but be good and in this case it is the former that steals the best scene in the movie.
That is sadly not saying much though.
He gets two and a bit scenes but true to form his character drastically changes between them.
Danny McBride has the closest thing to a fully formed character but this may be because his is at lest consistent.
I didn't hate this movie but I didn't like it much either.
It is all over the place and frankly just odd.
I never got a feel for any of the characters.
In Crowe's "Jerry Maguire" Jerry was a man becoming a better version of himself.
Dorothy was a woman looking to be inspired.
They worked because they felt like real (albeit movie) people and we felt like we knew them and liked them and were rooting for them.
Crowe seems to have forgotten everything that made the wonderful 1996 movie and "Singles" and "Say Anything" before it so good.
Far too little romance and not nearly enough comedy here.
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