REVIEW OF CAMERON CROWE'S ALOHA

2015 rating: 1/2

The Politically Correct Machine has helped save ALOHA by venting complaints that there aren't enough actual Hawaiians in a movie set in Hawaii. Controversy covering up for an empty shell.

First off, there's hardly anyone around beyond the primary cast, with the exception of a small village of… Native Hawaiians that, unlike the greedy white folk, are like “Indians” in Neo Westerns, looking to the sky with wisdom while those neurotic Caucasians race around like gaudy checkers on a plush chessboard. And what really needs to be centered on is how truly awful ALOHA is, in every regard – which might be an impossible feat since no other recent movie has lacked so much: including plot and character-development, two things attempted right off the bat simply because three popular and attractive movie stars appear together on the big screen: After cramming everything into a rushed introductory narration, we meet Bradley Cooper’s Brian Gilcrest, a maverick defense contractor sent to Hawaii – and yet we never actually experience anything he’d ever risked. Imagine if Han Solo were first introduced to audiences already frozen in carbonate... Tony Stark in a coma.

By his side, overacting to the hilt… an embarrassing, hyperactive attempt to steal the picture... is Emma Stone as Allison Nig, a spunky fighter pilot never once seen fighting or piloting. Hired to keep an eye on Cooper’s ambiguous shyster while they get lost in the "magical" Hawaiian night, working out a land deal with the natives, their Romantic Comedy chemistry is beyond awkward. She seems to be frantically auditioning for the “role of a lifetime” while Cooper blandly rehearses for just another paycheck: as if his SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK character overdosed on Valium, and went with it. Meanwhile, in writer/director Cameron Crowe’s usual low-rent Hal Ashby fashion, he throws in a collection of otherwise good tracks for no apparent reason: a jukebox playing in a barroom of chattering nincompoops. 

If this pseudo couple weren't bad enough, throw in an ex girlfriend, Tracy, played by the always overly-angelic Rachel McAdams, and her two perfect Hollywood-Cliché kids, attempting to give our leading man legitimate background as a flawed-endearing human being. Yet no one is fleshed-out beyond idyllic chatter tethered to a buried plot involving a really rich guy (Bill Murray, wasting his and our time) who wants to launch a rocket... of some kind... to the local’s existential chagrin. 

As for an actual story – there isn’t one. In fact, ALOHA is neither a popcorn time-filler, an arthouse comedy, a political/military satire or any kind of romance. By far the best character, involved in a humorous moment towards the end, does the audience a favor by hardly speaking a word, a miracle in itself: For Cameron Crowe’s dialogue has become so vapid, he should start making Silent Films… Let’s just hope someone else writes the title cards.