User reviews

Great cast, but unfortunate movie to be hired for. plot was difficult to follow and character development weak. at times comical when it wasn't supposed to be. oh well...at least I watched it while in Hawaii which made it slightly more interesting...better luck next time for these actors!

Loveable actors playing mostly unbelievable characters in an unbelievable plot that hinges on a boy's video recording. Mixed soundtrack as confusing as rest of the movie. The elements were all there for a great film but writer/director Crow didn't know in which direction to take it.

Aloha has absolutely no idea what it wants to be. If I had to count, I'd say there are about 10 subplots in this movie which is about 9 too many for a romcom. Sure, it's based on real-life, but that's no excuse to make a terrible movie. It's a chore to watch this thing, it took me three separate sittings before I can make it to the end without falling asleep or dying of boredom. Its tone is probably the worst offender. Like I said, it has no idea what it wants to be, so it tries to be everything. A love story, a political statement, a bittersweet comedy, a tense drama-mystery about a guy trying to control space - it does not mesh well at all. I had forgotten Alec Baldwin was even in the movie at one point, and that was probably the most interesting storyline in the damn thing. It's frustrating because there is a good story in there! Somewhere! I think. It's hard to tell with all the surrounding sh*t.

The cast is the only good thing about this movie. It's just a shame watching them have to recite this terrible dialogue to one another. They even have chemistry at times which helps during the cringe-y moments, but convincing acting doesn't make a bad script good. It just makes a bad script... somewhat watchable. But don't watch it. It sucks.

It is not easy to encapsulate Aloha in a genre. It's not the usual Rom-Com, although the argument might lead one to believe that yes. The main thread describes the dramatic arc of a man centered on his work, capable of loving, but with difficulty to engage in lasting relationships. In addition, the film explores some manifestations of Hawaiian culture and parody some clichés about military conflicts and conspiracies, with unequal effectiveness.

The speed with which Aloha travels from one genre to another, sometimes in the middle of the same scene or dialogue, must have confused more than one viewer. It is understood that it has not reached a greater success, between the public and the critic.

But Aloha has beautiful details to watch and taste, combining serious and emotive subjects with a fine humor, in a delicate balance.

Also, it is a film with an outstanding casting. The protagonists do their work. Rachel McAdams is charming. It's a pleasure to see Bill Murray. And it is remarkable the discovery of Danielle Rose Russell, a young actress who delivers a memorable performance, to close a light and touching film, that tackles serious issues without taking them too seriously.

I actually thought I was going crazy while listening to the dialogue in the movie...questioning my sanity. Never have humans ever interacted the way this movie portrays it. I would not be shocked if aliens wrote this movie because that's how insane the interactions are. None of it makes sense, the characters are bizarre, and I had no idea what was going on. This is billed as a romantic comedy when it really a test of who your willpower and how long you can watch this weird concoction of like seven different stories happening at once. How do movies like this get made with so many famous people?!

I was excited when I saw the cast of this film only to find out that it had a pretty poor rating. A friend had even recommended it to me, but I questioned her judgment compared to what apparently 30k people have thought about it. But I finally decided to give it a go, and it was worth it. I honestly don't know why it has such a low rating. The film is definitely slower, but it's the feel of the movie. I thought it was interesting, romantic, and funny. It even made me laugh out loud a few times. I loved Emma's character but Bradley Cooper's character took a little warming up to. If you go into it with an open mind, I think you will be pleasantly surprised.

Mostly panned by critics, I have to say, I really didn't mind this film at all. The critics are simply wrong here, at least to my tastes they are. A few aspects may not have worked so well, sure, but I feel many aspects did work quite well. I enjoyed the vast subject matter, the entertaining cast, and the unique energy this film has. The storytelling here in my view is another interesting one in a long line of good and different Cameron Crowe films. When most of Hollywood is making very safe and predictable films, at least we still have a few American directors willing to do something different and willing to bring attention to often overlooked (or even new), issues. Most of all though it is the very grounded human feelings in Cameron Crowe films that really make them work for me. This is no exception. To me this was a fun, heartfelt, and somewhat thought provoking film. The critics can keep giving mindless films like Guardians of the Galaxy and Mad Max:Fury Road good reviews, but for me, this film kicks both their asses easily. 7/10

This movie is somehow all over the place, threads begin but do not end, connections exist but how and why is not explained. I felt like I was watching a movie that is great inside the head of the writer/director but he knows the story to well and forgets to tell us half of it.It's like it is trying to be everything for everybody and while doing that failing in all aspects. The whole military plot thing is strange, lots of people are just there and we are never told why or even who they are.

This is not a feel good movie, it is a feel strange movie leaving you with lots of questions, the main one being why?

I don't know why this got such low ratings here. This is a movie with multifaceted characters. The actors did a really good job developing and evolving these characters, even with one of the characters rarely talking. You completely understood what he was trying to say without him saying it. It may not be a fast paced movie, but it still moves at a comfortable pace. It is well rounded with drama, comedy, and romance.

The movie features an all star cast each having an amazing talent for expressing the emotions of their characters into fully 3 dimensional people: emotions, brokenness, past history, failures, etc. I actually expected this to be a "low brainer" movie. How wrong I was and so glad that I took the time to discover this movie is rare gem. .... OK some reviewers were / are expecting these actors to revive past roles that blew minds just to drag in an audience. Nah, that would be too simple! Instead Cameron Crowe utilized the known strengths of each of the actors in a truly romantic (comedy) using their individual skills to tell the story. (I will leave up for debate whether he (Crowe) was capitalizing on past performances) . Love the cast and the story. Only sort of negative would be to include more local Hawaii natives to flesh out their love of culture. That said the natives that do appear are delightful. Enjoy this movie with these thoughts in mind. As for me I must see it again soon!

The scenes seem out of order and not connected. Bradley Cooper's voice sounds dubbed. There is no chemistry with Emma Stone and the plot with Rachel McAdams is awkward. This was boring and not really entertaining. I kept hoping for it to perk up, but it never did. I can't believe actors read this script and agreed to do it. it seems like they added in Bill Murray at eh last minute and made up really bad dialogue. This was so bad.

Rarely have I seen such a bad film from a major studio release and with A or B list stars in it, but this truly is one of the worst movies I've seen recently. I would try to sum up the plot, but it's meaningless, as this movie is not a whole,flowing story, but rather a checklist of markers through which the scenes pass and tick the box, and hurry on to the next marker on the list.

By eliminating any character and story growth and simply jumping to the bottom line in every scene, some scenes are just so awkward and... just bad, they will make you cringe with discomfort, not only because they're so lame in themselves, but because they're so obvious and scripted that it's pathetic.

I really like light Rom-Com's, and I enjoy a film that doesn't take itself too seriously- but this one is so bad it actually made me sad.

The focus of Cameron Crowe's films has evolved, but they have consistently expressed a style that is all his own. The writer/director of "Aloha" (PG-13, 1:45) has brought us over a dozen movies since the early 1980s. Crowe has served as both writer and director on most of them, meaning that each one expresses who he is as a filmmaker and as a man – consistent, open, sensitive and quirky – along with reflecting where he is on life's journey at any given time. Except for an occasional fantasy/mystery ("Vanilla Sky") or musical documentary (one on Tom Petty and one on Pearl Jam), most of Crowe's films have been comedies, each with a generous helping of drama thrown in and usually a good bit of romance as well.

But his focus has evolved. His early films are membered as iconic and eminently quotable: "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" (1982), "Say Anything" (1989), "Singles" (1992) and "Jerry Maguire" (1996). With those last two, we start to see Crowe focus more on the concept of family, in a wide variety of forms. "Almost Famous" (2000) and "We Bought a Zoo" (2011) continued that trend. "Jerry Maguire" and "Almost Famous" also signal the beginning of a shift in which Crowe's films increasingly emphasize one central character seeking redemption for past mistakes and/or simply sorting out what really matters to him and trying to find his place in the world. It's a style that's even more pronounced in 2005's "Elizabethtown" and 2015's "Aloha". But through all these shifts, remaining remarkably consistent have been Crowe's strong doses of character development and fun, quirky dialog.

The central character in "Aloha" is Brian Gilcrest (Bradley Cooper), a former Air Force officer who is now a defense contractor working for billionaire Carson Welch (Bill Murray). Welch is one of the many rich businessmen who, in this age of dwindling budgets, the military depends on to help finance its satellites. Welch is a bit of a mystery, but not so Gilcrest. It's not hard to see where he's coming from. Once an idealistic young man fascinated with outer space, he has become cynical and virtually swallowed up by the compromises he has made to enhance his love life, his bank account and his position in the world. Over time, all this has caught up with him and now he finds himself with no moral or romantic compass, his looks and his charm seeming to be all that's getting him through life. While deployed to Afghanistan, he made a couple big mistakes – one that almost ended his life and one that did end his military career. As the film opens, he's headed to Hawaii, his old stomping grounds, to negotiate a deal with the locals that will allow the military to expand one of their bases and to launch new satellites.

What Gilcrest thinks will be a simple mission that will take less than a week and give him a chance to get back in the game is complicated by ghosts from his past and new challenges in his present. When he lands in Honolulu, Gilcrest reunites with an odd former Air Force buddy, Colonel "Fingers" Lacy (Danny McBride) and he's also confronted with old flame Tracy Woodside (Rachel McAdams). She dumped him 13 years prior and married a stable but quiet (practically non-communicative) Air Force pilot named John "Woody" Woodside (John Krasinski). Tracy also has a 12-year-old daughter named Grace (Danielle Rose Russell) who is trying to overcome her tween awkwardness by learning to dance the hula, and a 9-year-old son named Mitchell (Jaeden Lieberher) who is awkwardly obsessed with using his video camera to record everything and also spouting Hawaiian mythology and legends to anyone who will listen. While he's forced to confront his past, Gilcrest's overriding present concern is dealing with the extremely dedicated and overly perky Air Force liaison, Captain Allison Ng (pronounced "Ing"), played by Emma Stone. Being one-quarter Hawaiian (as she keeps telling everyone), meticulous in the performance of her duties, and fascinated with the man in whom she sees greatness while still referring to as "a wreck", she insists on tagging along for a scheduled meeting between Gilcrest and his old acquaintance Dennis "Bumpy" Kanahale. Playing himself, he's President of what he calls "The Hawaiian Nation". Bumpy and his compatriots consider the over century-long American presence in Hawaii as a military occupation. It's going to take all of Gilcrest's negotiating skill and all of Ng's deferential idealism to convince Bumpy to give his blessing to the expansion of the Air Force base. Meanwhile, suspiciously watching all of this from the sidelines is General Dixon (Alec Baldwin), a man who hates Gilcrest and may or may not be involved in some shady dealings with Murray's character. "Aloha" fits the mold of a typical Cameron Crowe film – a great cast with a somewhat disjointed but pleasant story. Through most of the movie, it seems that Crowe couldn't decide if he wanted this movie to be a romantic comedy, a military drama or an ode to Hawaiian history and culture, much like "The Descendants" (2011). As you're watching Crowe's story unfold, you begin to wonder if "Aloha" exists mainly so we can watch the pretty people dance around each other, both literally and figuratively, but the pieces do eventually fit together. The film's last 20 or so minutes become very focused, dramatic, romantic and even joyful. Along the way, the talented cast is a pleasure to watch, the dialog tickles the ear, the scenery provides a beautiful backdrop for the goings-on and there are some very memorable scenes. An ongoing joke about unspoken communication earns a big payoff at the end of the movie and Alec Baldwin's big scene is every bit as funny as in the trailers. In short, this isn't a perfect movie, but it's a nearly perfect Cameron Crowe movie, with as many meanings as that one-word title has in the land of its origin. "B+"

First off this movie is a joke to Hawaii and the military. Only Battleship and USS Indianapolis our worse for military movies. The whole movie is rushed from the start, does not give any time to develop just jumps right to get to the end. The story is actually pretty good and could be done very well, but the execution was just terrible. Had good songs placed in the wrong moments. Great actors whose talents were misused. The trailer for this movie is way better than the movie and misleads you to thinking that this will be one of the best movies. I don't know what they were going for but it missed the mark. I wouldn't say totally unwatchable but definitely not a good watch. It's just disappointing knowing what could of been.

As a film maker and former film school professor, I have a lot of my students as friends on Facebook. Many of them, most notably ones of Asian descent, came out full of vitriol and condemnation of this film, many of them before they had even seen it, as did a lot of the popular media.

IGNORE THEM! This is Cameron Crowe back in form. The film in no way disrespects Hawaiian culture or ignores its aboriginal and Asian populations, in fact it celebrates them. Emma Stone as a character named Allison Ng ("My dad was half Chinese and half Hawaiian... so I'm 1/4 Hawaiian") had to be played by a white actress in that she is referencing exactly that desire of some white people to pawn themselves off as ethic. She does it marvelously.

In fact the whole cast is amazing, with a script that absolutely sparkles, especially in its frequent nods to non-verbal communication. The last, most moving and completely wordless scene is worth the price of admission. Danielle Rose Russell's performance in this scene is breathtaking, and she is completely luminous through out, even though she has only a handful of lines.

Others with only handfuls of lines who make the film really shine are John Krazinski, Bill Murray and Alex Baldwin. The three leads are all amazing, with Stone a little over the top (tho appropriate for her character) and I think this is as good a work as Rachel McAdams has ever done.

I have to admit that the plotting of the whole military contractor subplot had a few too many little deus ex machina bows tied around it, but it was all maguffin for the beautiful insights into human heart and its connections anyway. And not nearly as preposterous as the embarrassing Elizabethtown.

I put a lot of store in IMDb ratings, and I have never seen them as far off the mark as they are with this film. I am a progressive, and expect cultural respect from Hollywood, but this may be another sad case of the hidden ability for random accusations of political incorrectness to cow the media.

Aloha is possibly one of the lightest movies you will ever see. I'm not a lover of the director, therefore my main reason to see this was the cast. Though Bradly Cooper is not as good as he was in Silver Linings Playbook, he is convincing enough not to ruin the movie. Same goes for Emma Stone and Rachel McAdams. The story is not a big deal and it's pretty straightforward for a script that has been in the works for 4 years. The comedy is non-existent in the movie. But the brightest part of the film is the sheer sweetness of the relationships between the characters.

This is a movie you should absolutely watch with your Girlfriend or spouse.

In today's climate, we do tend to pile on hate. And, this had A TON heaped on it. For what reason? I'm not completely sure. The plot is thin, the dialogue hammy, but...the actors involved are just that...involved. The commitment to deliver bad lines well is a craft and art in itself. And to Stone and Cooper's credit, they do that. If you look at Cameron Crowe's movies, this is typical of most of his films. Low on story, HUGE on heart. And that isn't a bad thing in a really cynical world. These movies should exist. It's a movie world. It has zero basis in the reality crap we see on t.v. nowadays. THAT'S precisely what I took from it. Crowe's world isn't suppose to be raw...it's suppose to be Hollywood-ized. And people hate that. Why? Again, you'd have to see where we are in society now. These are beautiful people, doing beautiful things in a beautiful world. That's long passed us. So it's seen as nostalgia. Not a bad thing. Just a bad thing when you try to pin it in some reality.

Granted, I did feel Cooper's casting was off. Not because he doesn't have the chops. But someone that handsome who's portrayed to have deep flaws doesn't ring completely true. Originally Ben Stiller was involved. And it would've been a far more interesting choice. Or say someone like Seth Rogen, who could pull off the wounded soul thing. But for critics to destroy it in the way they did, I think speaks more towards maybe not even seeing the movie and relying on what other critics have said. Or just reading the synopsis.

Do I want to like a Cameron Crowe movie? Not really. His projects like "Singles" or "Almost Famous" don't age well. But for this film, you get a straight forward romance with nothing new under the sun.