Whenever a movie gets completely panned by critics, there is always a little benefit of the doubt. We film critics are just uppity cinephiles who need a lot of artsy shit to impress us, right? Well, some are a little over-critical—I certainly try not to be—so when films like Aloha come out to absolutely horrendous reviews, you have to ask, “Can it really be that bad? There are so many good people in it!” Today, I am here to announce that Cameron Crowe’s Aloha is that bad and it is by far the biggest on-screen disaster of the year—which is really saying something when San Andreas, an actual disaster film, feels more cohesive and thought-out than this star-studded fiasco.
I mean, where do I start? There are about a dozen different places to go from within this mess. Do we begin with the typical philosophical conundrums that Crowe throws into every movie? Or do we start with the fallen-from-grace character that we’ve seen in Elizabethtown and Jerry Maguire who has lost everything? Aloha seems to want to be every possible movie you could make out of an already convoluted premise of a military contractor who returns to Hawaii and gets involved with a love-triangle, mystical island spirits, nuclear weapons, and a kid who likes to film hamsters having sex.
The cast, which by all intents and purposes should be great, delivers a range of performances that are either unenthusiastic about the rambling script, or far too over-accommodating to make up for whatever the script wanted out of the actor. It is a pure waste of talent with the likes of Bradley Cooper, Rachel McAdams, John Krasinski, and Emma Stone who all should be reading the scripts before they sign on to movies from now on.
It’s like nobody actually proof-read the screenplay—which basically feels like it was just Crowe vomiting everything he could think of onto paper and calling it good. There is simply too much going on for anything to have any emotional weight behind it or any sort of captivation. The characters are unlikable and boring. We do not get a sense that they are actually people outside of when they are on screen, but more of over-the-top quirky people that Crowe loves to regurgitate and act like they are realistic.
Like Bradley Cooper’s character—who aims for the stars—Aloha tries to reach a celestial high with its philosophically pandering screenplay, annoyingly idiosyncratic characters, and consistently juxtaposing themes and motifs that never pay off. In the Hawaiian language, “aloha” means both hello and goodbye—let’s hope for Cameron Crowe’s sake this is the latter.
This was such a painful film to watch, even more painful as I am a huge Cameron Crowe fan and I can’t believe how utterly terrible this was? Forget about not casting an actual Hawaiian native for Emma Stone’s character, but she annoyed the hell out of me from start to finish in this role and I normally adore her.How many times did we need to see her looking over her shoulder? She and Bradley Cooper had ZERO chemistry. The only enjoyable characters were played by John Krasinski + Alec Baldwin. This story was all over the place and half the time, the dialogue was unintelligible. YUCK!
When the head of the Sony studio basically said that this was going to flop months before it came out, and nobody actually checked up on the screenplay or the production, it was just a mess waiting to happen
Boy you are right. The dialogue makes no sense. I mean no sense. It’s like they are all having individual conversations with themselves. I didn’t think it was possible to make a movie about Hawaii I didn’t like. I even like the old cheesy Elvis movies but this is bad…