Review of Aloha (2015) by Kyle B — 29 May 2015

Sad to report that this was a bit of a mess. I'm not Cameron Crowe's biggest fan (HATED Jerry Maguire but enjoyed Almost Famous and We Bought a Zoo), but I like the types of movies he makes. Screwball rom coms seem to have disappeared to the indie world which is fine but it's nice to see big stars in these roles that don't appear in a Katherine Heigl rom com or a Nicolas Sparks sappy romantic drama.

Bradley Cooper is charming as ever in this even if the script is a mess and elevates the material to make the movie watchable. This is probably his best performance in a non Oscar baity movie (Silver Linings Playbook will always be his best).

Emma Stone is equally charming bringing out similar attributes of those old screwball leading ladies like Audrey Hepburn and Katherine Hepburn and has some great scenes with Cooper. They have excellent chemistry though Stone still looks a lot younger than she really is (26) so at times I was questioning Stone and Cooper's age difference but Cooper also looks a lot younger than he really is (40) so it works.

Rachel McAdams, John Krasinski, Bill Murray, Alec Baldwin, and surprisingly Danny McBride are all great but underutilized especially Alec Baldwin who steals the movie in only 3 scenes. But the script as I have said is so messy to the point I just was scratching my head at what was going on and what did it all mean which shouldn't happen during a rom com.

I wanted more rom com moments than all this job subplot Cooper and Murray had going on that honestly just made no sense until I watched a review of this movie after where they kind of had to go step by step to explain what was happening.

I morally kept myself away from any info leaked from the Sony hack but I do remember this movie being one of the topics but not knowing the details and didn't want to know (but that's a whole other story/rant).

All I knew because of journalist on twitter was that the studio put this movie through hell to re edit and re tool and I think it made things worst. I've mentioned many times that editing is something I really don't look at in a movie (that's somewhat the point) but there were clear editing mistakes and awkward flipping mid conversation that just there you out of the film just questioning why that just happened plus I think the camera man was a little drunk during certain scenes.

The movie looks gorgeous with Hawaii being the back drop but this movie really could have happened anywhere else with the same effect (minus a lot of out of place and random mythology talk). It's not a disaster like many say it is, the cast does really elevate the film to acquire a recommendation from me for a DVD rental or its destined Netflix dumping but it just all does not flow well.