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Review: 'Aloha' wastes a good cast in a clumsy disaster

 
Emma Stone, Bradley Cooper and Rachel McAdams lead a cast of favored actors that sadly can’t salvage the mess of a script that is Aloha.
Emma Stone, Bradley Cooper and Rachel McAdams lead a cast of favored actors that sadly can’t salvage the mess of a script that is Aloha.
Published May 28, 2015

How bad is Cameron Crowe's ho-hum rom-com Aloha?

Bad enough for Sony to hear accusations of "white-washing" Hawaiian culture for weeks from natives, rather than show anyone Aloha to prove them wrong. Better to suffer baseless criticism than allow disparaging word-of-mouth to spread too soon, curbing the box office take.

All Crowe's movie has going for it is casting, a lineup of favored actors wasted in a screenplay unsure of what it wants to be. Aloha is by turns a love quadrangle that never materializes, an ode to Hawaiian sovereignty, an opposites-attract cliche and an outer-space weapons caper, all of which is clumsily executed. The story's second half barely makes sense from scene-to-scene, likely a result of late tampering to salvage Sony's investment.

Aloha stars Bradley Cooper as Brian Gilcrest, former NASA scientist now contracting his skill to a billionaire (Bill Murray, but don't get excited) sending a satellite into orbit from Honolulu. Brian left there 13 years ago, breaking up with Tracy (Rachel McAdams), who now has two children and an uncommunicative husband (John Krasinski). One of the kids is 12 years old, which even her little brother figures out immediately. Act surprised later.

Add to that jumble a woefully miscast Emma Stone as Capt. Allison Ng, an uptight U.S. Air Force liaison for rakish Brian and the billionaire. We're told several times that Allison is one-quarter Hawaiian but not even a Swedish mom excuse makes that claim convincing. If cultural advocates have any beef with Aloha, it could be her character, although Allison is the movie's wisest nonnative about Hawaiian lore. If only she weren't so pale and perky about sharing it.

Brian's duties include cutting a deal with Native Hawaiians to bless the satellite project, briefly turning over Aloha to sovereign activist Dennis "Bumpy" Kanahele, playing himself, extolling independence from U.S. control. The sequence feels out of step with what transpires before and after, although Aloha is so disjointed that "in step" is difficult to define.

Perhaps that's a result of editing room scrambling. Originally planned for a Christmas, 2014 release, Aloha had lousy test screenings, forcing a postponement leaving Sony time to tinker.

Crowe's admirers hoping for a comeback after 15 years of disappointment are out of luck. The writer who romanticized Generation X evolution from Ridgemont High through Singles grunge and Jerry Maguire success has lost his touch. Nothing Crowe created since 2000 feels as personal, as real as Almost Famous, which was essentially his maturation through rock and roll journalism. Crowe has become his parents, a fate worse than obscurity for any counter-authority hero.

Nothing occurs organically in Aloha, not Brian's back story tumbling from Allison's mouth in dense exposition, the way she uncovers the billionaire's true outer space intentions, or how the resulting ethical crisis is solved. A climactic scene involving Brian's paternal confession is unsettling to watch, his manner so selfish that it feels like bullying. Not a single grown-up in Aloha deserves the happy ending Crowe wrangles.

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That teapot tempest surrounding Aloha will blow over but not the sinking feeling caused by its ineptness. Suddenly Adam Sandler's working vacations in Hawaii look a bit better. Island natives shouldn't be upset over being excluded from Crowe's movie; they should be mad because they're in it.

Contact Steve Persall at spersall@tampabay.com or (727) 893-8365. Follow @StevePersall.