Aloha
(Cameron Crowe, 2015)
A celebrated military
contractor returns to the site of his greatest career triumphs and reconnects
with a long-ago love while unexpectedly falling for the hard-charging Air Force
watch-dog assigned to him.
The setting :
Hawaii. The cast : Bradley Cooper,
Emma Stone, Rachel McAdams, John Krasinski,
Bill Murray, Alec Baldwin. The director : Cameron Crowe. Well, what could
possibly go wrong? As much as a new Cameron Crowe film makes us wish for a
return into his top form of his Almost
Famous days or just his Say Anything
inspiration, it would be something very very nice.
However, it
was not the case with Elizabethtown
and it is not even slightly a possibility with Aloha. The story of Brian (Cooper) who is hired by the US army to
make a deal possible with the native Hawaiians to permit a civilian space
center to be established by Bill Murray’s character is absolute non-sense and
even not an issue here. Since the story is so wrecked apart this element brings
a slice of complexity on a film that cripples and to give it such a heavy
plot line is just too much. Banking on the series of successes by the star power
of Bradley Cooper and Emma Stone was a wrong idea since they seemed to have
played their scenes separated. As if, Stone was left in Hollywood to save time
and budget and both stars just seemed to be isolated from one another. No
chemistry and not even a real sense of connection. This love story is just not
there.
In fact,
there are so many plot issues that I think it doesn’t need to be written. It
would be to give them too much importance. Just as Alexander Payne’s Hawaiian
success of The Descendants with
George Clooney was a nice mix of the native’s culture, Aloha is like the complete opposite. I like Emma Stone, but she is
not a native and don’t even try to make me believe this.
Overall, Aloha is like a big flop from start to
end and sadly even the gentle comedy didn’t help to save the movie from being a
terrible mess. As much as Crowe has impressed with his early films and especially
his masterpiece Almost Famous, he is
just not there anymore and sadly seemed to have lost his writing and directing
touch. It brings us to ask one question when an early bird like him writing
interviews with legendary rock stars have burned him up and emptied his tank.
I saw this film back in May just because I was asked to by Cinema Axis knowing it wasn't good as I had very low expectations for it. Thank goodness I went to see Mad Max: Fury Road afterwards because Aloha is already one of the worst films I had ever seen in my life. It is as if Cameron Crowe really became delusional thinking he could do something with charm and with a sense of idealism while relying on music to drive the story. I thought Elizabethtown was bad but this film is far worse.
ReplyDeleteIt had a lot of white-washing and all sorts of bullshit as 95% of the film I felt had nothing but music as if Crowe would suffer if there isn't more music. Plus, I think there was a longer film there somewhere but Crowe spent too much time trying to make the story more accessible and the result is a fucking mess. Plus, there were too many things that were so obvious as I think Crowe didn't do enough to surprise people and let the drama play out instead.
If I ever come across him one day. I would like to beat the shit out of him, ask for my money back, and have access to his entire music collection so that I can destroy it. That way, he will need to learn to not use music in films to drive the story.
I understand how you feel. Crowe seems to make films to make moments with songs he likes. This is, as you said it, a fucking mess.
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