Aloha

"Did She Mention that She's a Quarter Hawaiian?" "Yeah, Like Fifty Times."

I managed to avoid most press about this film, except for some articles floating around protesting the casting of Emma Stone as Allison Ng, love interest to Bradley Cooper and quarter-Hawaiian fighter pilot. I was going to give this film the benefit of the doubt about this casting decision, and was okay with it throughout the first half, given that Stone’s character is obsessed with Hawaiian culture and loves to explain it to Cooper so much that it would almost feel patronizing if the character looked Hawaiian (like, come on, Hawaiians know how to talk about things other than Hawaii).

BUT, the film places such an emphasis on Stone’s culture heritage that you cannot ignore it; at one point she spells out her family background: her mom is Swedish, and her father is half-Chinese and half-Hawaiian. We even get to see a picture of her parents (briefly). That’s where the movie lost me. It is indeed POSSIBLE that pale, blonde-haired blue-eyed Emma Stone was birthed from that combination of parents, but it is not at all PROBABLE. Genes just don’t work that way. One step forward, two steps back guys: if you’re going to write a part for a mixed-race woman, don’t cast arguably one of the whitest women in Hollywood.

Okay, that’s done. Onto the review.

Soooo, “Aloha” is a really boring film, in a lot of ways, most of them structural. As a Brom-Com (that’s a romantic comedy for bros), the focus is on the romantic plotline, but the film has to pretend to be about something else so that it doesn’t feel like a “chick-flick” (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, Cameron Crowe wrote and directed this movie, “Jerry Maguire” and “Elizabethtown” – they’re all the same film). In “Aloha”’s case, that something else is the politics of commercial space exploration from a military stand-point, and the financial and cultural exploitation of native Hawaii.

Yeah…it doesn’t work all, mostly because Crowe’s direction gives everything that happens on the screen equal weight. A fight between Cooper and Stone and the discovery of a secret military plot caught on film feel the same; there is no true sense of stakes. This is made worse by the fact that Cooper and Stone only sort of have chemistry. This shouldn’t be so, they’re both beautiful people making beautiful faces at each other, but something is getting in the way of me believing them as a couple. It could be their drastically different acting styles (Stone feels at some points like she’s in a cartoon), it could be the stilted lines they’re forced to say, it could be the subplot between Cooper and his married ex-girlfriend (Rachel McAdams) which sets up a false choice for Cooper’s character to make, but none of it feels good or natural. Drastic measures taken by Cooper’s character near the end of the film almost save the narrative, but it ends up feeling rushed and contrived.

While “Aloha” is pretty and well-shot, it ultimately feels like Crowe is trying to recapture some of the magic from his earlier films. The result is a script that feels forced, and some talented actors wasted on so-so material. Aloha, “Aloha”. 


DRINK: 
They drink something called a Hawaiian Lemonade in the film, but I recommend the Blue Hawaii. It's more festive, and it'll get you drunk quicker.

POSSIBLE RULES:
-Drink whenever someone talks about Hawaiian culture.
-Drink whenever someone touches Bradley Cooper.
-Drink whenever someone mentions outer space
-Drink whenever someone salutes
-Drink whenever the little kid brings out his camera

This review was written by Hollis Beck (Krissy Pappau). "Aloha" was produced by Colombia Pictures and Regency Enterprises, and distributed by 20th Century Fox. The film is rated PG-13 with a run time of 105 minutes.