Film Review - Aloha (2015)

Aloha is written and directed by Cameron Crowe and stars Bradley Cooper as Brian Gilcrest a former officer who comes to Hawaii to bless a new pedestrian gate for the Army Base there but while there he meets his liaison officer Captain Allison Ng (Emma Stone) and his ex Tracy (Rachel McAdams.)

I was looking forward to this movie before heading to see it for two reasons: The first is that I loved the preview I saw for the film and second there is a big part of me that misses movies like this (you know ones like Wall Street, When Harry Met Sally, Dead Poets Society, The Player etc) so I became hopeful on both fronts this could deliver the goods.

Sadly it did not but I don't in any way feel disappointed with this film like I did with the Avengers Age of Ultron but more in the sense that this was a bad film for these reasons three:

- First of all is that the storyline is a mess and has 2 plotlines (one concerning his reason for being in Hawaii and the other being the love triangle) that could have been entirely separate films in their own right and they just do not mesh well together and as a result the film feels very jarring to watch.

- The second is that the characters here are unlikeable to watch, Brian is an arrogant shit who does one thing in particular in this film that really made me mad, Allison is the stereotypical fast talking take no nonsense woman who slowly falls for the handsome and charismatic man that she works with and Rachel is the stereotypical ex who secretly still feels something for her previous man before the one SHE ACTUALLY SMEGGING MARRIED and then there are the stereotypical natives and the stereotypical military officers and corporate guys.

- And lastly the performances are really bad and from people who have normally done good work, Cooper who really impressed me with his work in Guardians of the Galaxy and American Sniper was really smug here which is a shame to say, Stone and McAdams are wonderful actresses but are just simply Capital W Wasted here while Alec Baldwin and Bill Murray get very little if anything to do but hopefully Baldwin will redeem himself in the upcoming Mission Impossible Rogue Nation later this year.

Look I wanted to like this film I really did but I have to be fair dinkum and say that I didn't due to its messy script, unlikeable and stereotypical characters and bad performances from normally solid and reliable actors, avoid this film, 1 out of 5.