If you thought that Elizabethtown was the worst film that could ever come from Cameron Crowe, I am afraid you were dead wrong. Crowe, usually a very talented writer-director, has made one of the most jumbled, dull messes of all time with Aloha. This is to Crowe what 1941 is to Steven Spielberg, Cruising is to William Friedkin and Jack is to Francis Ford Coppola. Yeah..it's that unbelievably terrible. However, I can't fully blame him. From the numerous reshoots that had to take place to the reports that Crowe and Bill Murray dreaded working with one another to the overall fact that the film was basically taken out of Crowe's hands a la Ridley Scott and Blade Runner, it seems like there's much more than just an incredible waste of talent here. What's even worse---this is a cliche romantic comedy that throws in an impossible to follow plot. Films this stupid shouldn't make my brain hurt from trying to figure out what the heck is going on.
I'm going to try to explain the plot here but I don't know if I'll fully be able to. Essentially, Bradley Cooper plays Brian Gilcrest, a down on his luck guy working for billionaire Carson Welch (Murray) who travels to Hawaii to close a deal. There, he is forced to train, and eventually falls in love with Allison Ng (Emma Stone) all the while trying to deal with "the one that got away," Tracy (Rachel McAdams) who is now married to curt military personnel Woody (John Krasinski.)
The main problem here is the fact that there are about fifteen plots at play but none of them feel connected at all. Brian and Allison have absolutely zero chemistry but somehow fall in love, the dynamic between Brian and Tracy is so clunky to the point where that plot becomes useless and no one else is given anything to do. Excellent, impossible to dislike actors such as Danny McBride, Alec Baldwin and Bill Camp even show up but have no real role.
Also, the trailer made the film look promising but the entirety of the film features things that were cool in the trailer awkwardly put into it. Take a scene in which Brian and Allison are having a conversation. In the middle of one of them saying a sentence, the camera pans to the complete opposite side of the room to show Carson and an interviewer who has not been in the film at all up until this point. The interviewer asks Carson about his idea of what the future means and he delivers his speech from the trailer. There's nothing else to it. He just says those lines and then it's back to Brian and Allison. This is indicative of the entire film. There's no flow or connection from scene to scene. Things happen simply to happen.
The cast isn't really to blame here. They try their absolute best. It's just that I have trouble imagining even Burt Lancaster or Spencer Tracy being able to deliver such clunky, ludicrous dialogue. This is a shockingly inept script that feels like it may have been something special if Crowe was just allowed to run wild with it. I can't take all the blame off of Crowe. The job of a writer-director is to stand up for what they believe the film should be. Sure, even Orson Welles lost control of his films from various studios multiple times but he never came close to sinking as low as Crowe does here. This is shamefully dumb stuff that's way too tedious and dull to even have a hint of a fun camp/cult film factor.
In the end, there's absolutely no reason to see Aloha. It's hard to imagine there ever being this big of a waste of talent again in my lifetime. By the end of the film, Crowe has already had the finale drag out around 25 minutes longer than it ever needed to and I was endlessly happy to have it end. At one point, Brian says to Allison "It's all over now." Unfortunately, there was still an incredibly long way to go. This film is so bad and misguided that it can't even take advantage of the beautiful setting!
(0 out of 5 Stars, The film is rated PG-13 for some language including suggestive comments)
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