I love to cook and especially during the weekends when I have time to search for a new dish, do my shopping and spend some time in the kitchen. Of course I occasionally pick out dishes which I’ll only make once because I don’t like them, but in general they taste good and the combination of various ingredients turn into a delicious meal.
Making a movie can be easily compared to cooking. There are a lot of elements that come together to deliver a beautiful end product, under the guidance of a master chef. In this case the name of that master chef is Cameron Crowe, who was previously responsible for such films as Say Anything, Jerry Maguire, Almost Famous and Vanilla Sky. For Aloha he has managed to pick some very good ingredients in the form of Bradley Cooper, Emma Stone, Bill Murray , Rachel McAdams , Alec Baldwin and Danny McBride. Together with them he went into the kitchen, but does that result in a flavourful dish?
The story revolves around Brian Gilcrest (Cooper), who has a long history working for the army. He decided to start earning more and now works for a wealthy billionaire (Bill Murray). He travels to Hawaii to ensure that the local people give their blessing for a launch of a new satellite. For the military, it is important that the launch is a success, because it would mean additional income in the future. To make sure everything will go fine, they tell Allison Ng (Emma Stone) to accompany Brian everywhere. She’s a pilot who follows procedures, but also knows the stories that have made Brian “famous”.
When arriving Brian finds out that an ex-girlfriend, Tracy (Rachel McAdams) also lives on Hawaii, with her husband and two children. They have not seen each other for a long time, but there still seems to be something, however small, between them.
For this movie Cameron Crowe seems to have used different recipes without thinking whether it will fit together. Aloha is a rice dish on which he scooped some ice and then poured a bottle of Coke over. Separately they can all be nice, but you wouldn’t want to combine them in this way.
The film has no clear identity, giving its viewers no idea what kind of movie they’re watching. It is a mix of comedy, romance, hackers movie (!) and drama. There is hardly any moment that works within their genre (the only exception might be a scene in which Alec Baldwin loses his cool).
Emma Stone, who I normally really like it, doesn’t manage to convince at the start of the movie and as she plays one of the major roles it doesn’t help with credibility of the events. Along with its weak story and the constantly changing tone, this is a dish you’d better skip.
Man this was a terrible film. The talent lured me into watching it. After the film ended I had no idea what I had just watched. Agree – terrible film.
Hahaha, I can understand that feeling completely Jaina 🙂
I started watching this thing and only made it about 30 minutes in. It seems the opinions are pretty much in line. And what a shame considering the cast.
Yeah, don’t try watching it again…
You were being too nice to this film. I however, wasn’t. I was angry. I did what anyone would do in my position and that was give it the thrashing of a lifetime. I fucking hated this film. It was fucking stupid. Plus, I think there was a longer cut of this film somewhere but either Crowe compromised, got pressured by the studio, or had final cut and went into his own devices as it showed that it had some of the worst editing I had ever seen. Plus, there was almost no scene w/o music. If I ever meet Crowe, I’m going to kick his fucking ass and destroy his entire music collection to make sure that if he ever wants to make a film. Do it without music. It’s lazy-ass filmmaking.
Too nice? Well, the score says otherwise 😉 The editing was weird indeed. Hahaha, it’s clear you really hate this movie.