Big Picture Big Sound

Not Enough Fun in the Sun

I would like to talk about what "Aloha" could have been rather than what the movie actually is, but I can't. Instead of burying the lede, I'll put it bluntly; "Aloha" is a disappointing film.

Moments of the movie work and sometimes quite well. A movie with an A-list cast in a beautiful location had better be made of more than just moments. The cast is terrific but they are let down by their writer and director Cameron Crowe. Crowe, an Oscar-winning writer for "Almost Famous", has a checkered filmography and "Aloha" floats somewhere between his good films and his bad ones.

Seemingly missing some exposition, "Aloha" places Brian Gilcrest (Bradley Cooper) en route to Hawaii, the location of his greatest achievements as a military contractor. He is working for eccentric billionaire Carson Welch (Bill Murray), to help launch a satellite. While in Hawaii, Brian has been assigned to Allison Ng (Emma Stone), a snappy, fast-talking Air Force pilot, who must be at Brian's side as he works with the Hawaiian leaders.

Almost immediately off the plane, Brian reconnects and reminisces - for better or for worse - with his one-time love, Tracy (Rachel McAdams). Tracy is now married to Woody (John Krasinski), a stoic and mostly silent pilot. The shared history is evident between Brian and Tracy, who allow lingering feelings and past heartbreak to rise to the surface, sometimes without even speaking.

For a while, you never know what direction "Aloha" is going to go and sometimes you're not even sure the film knows what it wants to be. Brian is largely overwhelmed by Allison upon first meeting her but the two of them have an instant and sometimes very awkward chemistry. Cooper and Stone, who on paper seem very mismatched, set their scenes on fire. One minute they are flirting, the next minute they are playfully bantering or fighting. Cooper and Stone work well with the constant shifts in tone, making the most of each scene.

Cooper shares some wonderful moments with McAdams. For a while we aren't sure if Brian is going to play a romantic game of tug-of-war with Allison and Tracy, but that's okay - sometimes Brian isn't really sure either. Where the script really misfires is its transition from one scene to the next. Crowe never really seems to coherently connect the dots, allowing tonal shifts to abruptly occur and plot points to be skirted over. His dialogue is consistently clunky but, again, the cast comes to the rescue.

"Aloha" fell victim to a second wave of hacked Sony emails, which might have poisoned a lot of people's perception of the film. It's by no means the outright disaster former Sony head Amy Pascal deemed it in some of the leaked emails. The script just needed a little polishing because there is an old-fashioned romantic melodrama trapped in there waiting to come out.

The gorgeous, sun-kissed scenery and cast barely warrant giving the movie a tepid recommendation. They give it their all but are saddled with a script that makes you question if it really was written by an Oscar-winning scribe.